Tarry Flynn

by Patrick Kavanagh

  Tarry stood in the shadow of the poplars beside the stream musing on the general moral situation in a day-dreamy way. He could get no perspective on life, for life lay warm, too warm, around him, and too close and nearly suffocating. He was up to his neck in life and could not see it to enjoy it. His whole conscious mind was strained in an effort to drag himself up out of the belly of emotion.

  Sometimes he would concentrate, saying to himself: I am alive. Those are potatoes there, and that is a blackthorn’s root. Life was like a terrible pain which he was trying to analyse away.

  He found a long cigarette butt in the lining of his waistcoat and reflected on the irony of it; for the night before when he hadn’t a cigarette he had searched every pocket, including the linings, and could find nothing. Now when he had nearly a full packet he found this great long Player butt.

  Tarry, musing, got a feeling that someone was near at hand. He was right; his mother was standing on the height above him in the middle of the plot of turnips surveying the scene after having taken good stock of the turnips and of her son’s morning work.

  She had approached the field from the other end and had managed to come across the stone fence.

  ‘How do you think they’re doing?’ she asked.

  ‘The best turnips in your country,’ he said; ‘they’re butting a dread; some of them as thick as your thumb. They’re fierce turnips.’

  ‘Don’t be always boasting like the Callans. The Callans never had anything that wasn’t better than anyone else’s. Troth you may thank me that they’re so good. Only I was at you, you wouldn’t sow them that evening. Was that Eusebius you had with you?’

  ‘He was just passing; I hardly had time to talk to him.’

  ‘Oh, that’s the right careful boy that knows how to make a shilling. There was two mares up there this morning to his stallion – and you always making little of the animal, not sixteen hands high. It’s a terror the trade he’s getting for that young stallion.’

  ‘He’ll get all the bad pays the first year, don’t you know that? A new stallion or bull is like a new shop in that way. Nobody ever made money of a stallion or bull.’

  ‘Oh, that ’ill do you, now. A drunken oul’ rake never made money of a stallion, but I’ll bet you Eusebius won’t be so. Troth they’ll all pay him. Lord God of Almighty!’ Mrs Flynn reflected as her eyes scanned yellow-weeded fields to the east. ‘Them Carlins are the unfortunate people. The whole farm – and that’s the good dry farm – all going wild. Yellow weeds like a forest. Oh, that was a bad family that couldn’t have luck. The abuse they used to give to their father and mother was total dread. Getting up in the morning, at every hour, if the tay wasn’t fresh more would have to be wet. And there was a time when Jemmy was as consaitey a boy as went into Dargan chapel. And all the girls that were after him!

  “‘I could thatch a house with all the women I could get,” says he to me. “Yes, I could thatch a house with all the women I could get.’”

  The mother had come slowly down the drills while her son was driving the mare towards her. ‘You shouldn’t drive that unfortunate mare too fast,’ she said, for in her presence the son had put on a great spurt.

  He pulled up. The mother began to speak in a confidential whisper. ‘Had Eusebius any news?’

  Tarry thought that perhaps his mother had been listening to their talk about girls and was a bit embarrassed. ‘Curse o’ God on the ha’porth.’

  ‘Aw-haw, catch that fellow to tell you anything! They tell me the grippers were up at Carlins’ again. As I said, as bad as they are I was glad the oul’ cow, the only four-footed animal they have about the place, wasn’t taken. They drove her into Cassidy’s field. They’ll be out of that before you’re much older. They’ll be on the broad road as sure, as sure, as sure. And mind you, that’s as dry and as warm a farm of land as there is in the parish. There’s a couple of fields there and do you know what it is you could plough them with a pair of asses, they’re that free. It’s a terrible pity you wouldn’t take a better interest in your work and you could be the independentest man in Ireland. You could tell all the beggars to kiss your arse. This rhyming is all right but I don’t see anything in it. Sure if I thought there was anything in it I’d be the last person to say a word against it, but – Stand over here!’

  Tarry stood facing the point his mother drew attention to.

  ‘Who would that be?’ the mother whispered.

  They were watching someone, a man, coming at a stoop on the far side of a high hedge beyond Brady’s field. He had something on his back.

  ‘Do you know,’ said the mother, ‘just for cure-ossity you should slip down to the corner and see who the devil’s father it is. I’ll keep an eye on Polly.’

  Tarry crossed the drills quickly and pulling a rotten bush out of a gap in the hedge went into the grazing field.

  The man with the sleeper on his back was going at a stoop on the far side of the other hedge that divided Finnegan’s Big Hill from Flynn’s farm. It was Eusebius.

  While he was developing a strong jealousy towards Eusebius who was making such a practice of stealing sleepers that they’d all be caught in the end he saw another man coming at a murderous gallop down Brady’s narrow garden. This man was not a railwayman but a small farmer from the opposite side of the railway. No normal observer of the scene would need to be told what it was all about.

  Eusebius sized up the situation for he now was shoving the sleeper through a hole in the hedge into Flynn’s field.

  Having pushed the sleeper through he saw Tarry and, never at a loss, stood his ground until Tarry came up. Then seeing the angry man approaching he climbed through the hole made by the sleeper into Flynn’s field.

  ‘Larry Finnegan, he’s mad,’ Eusebius panted with a laugh that was much strained. Tarry listened.

  ‘He had the sleeper ready to take away, had it over the paling and was going back for another – the greedy dog – when I snaffled it on him. Just for a cod, you know.’

  By now the angry Larry had come up but instead of turning on Eusebius he went past without a word with an injured expression.

  They hid the sleeper in some briars and Eusebius went back the way he had come.

  ‘Well?’ asked the mother when the son returned.

  He told her the story.

  ‘There’s no luck in a thing like that,’ she said. ‘If I wanted a thing I’d pay for it and not have people throwing it in your face. Yes, aye,’ she said about nothing at all. ‘That mare won’t take long; you’d want to keep an eye on her. Oh, an unfortunate pack of poor devils. Do you know what?’ she declared suddenly on a new and enthusiastic note, ‘I think I’ll dodge up round Carlins’ one of these evenings to see what kind of a place they have at all. I don’t know the day or hour I was up there. Since the Mission, they don’t get up till evening I hear. When a party quits going to Mass it’s a bad sign.’

  Tarry saw the possibilities in that move, but not all the possibilities his mother saw.

  He had already another small problem in his mind – how to slip off with that sleeper before Eusebius returned for it. He knew what he would do. He would simply change the hiding place and if Eusebius found it well and good – well and good.

  Tarry shook the clay out of the heel of his boot and pulled his sock, which had been creeping towards his toes till the heel part was half-way up, tightly on his shin.

  He watched his mother as she walked along the bottom headland, slowly sauntering along it sideways looking up the drills with all the contentment that a good crop in a bad season can give to a tiller of the soil.

  ‘There’s a drill there,’ she shouted, ‘and what the devil happened it? You mustn’t have put any dung on it.’

  She did not expect an answer, and did not wait for one, but opened the wooden gate that led into the field where the cows were. The gate dragged and Tarry could sense her silent criticism as she pulled it open and shut.

  About this time Molly was in the habit of coming to the
well, and as Tarry had not given up hopes of seducing her in reality as successfully as he did so often in his daydreams he was hoping that his mother would not delay too long with the cows.

  A ploughman runs a risk when he daydreams in a stony field – unless his horses are extremely slow-moving and cautious.

  The mare seemed to know every turn and twist of her master’s mind; instinctively, like a woman. When she stepped over a hidden rock she went still slower. Sometimes she twisted her head round to have a good look at the driver, and sometimes she seemed to be laughing at him.

  His mother wandered slowly through the grazing field, musing on the grass.

  Tarry settled himself down to enjoy moulding the potatoes. So interested did he get in his work that he didn’t ‘loose out’ till one o’clock. He threw the harness on top of the plough and let the mare eat around the headland.

  How pleased his mother was that he hadn’t come home before the dinner was ready as he usually did, ‘coming in roaring for his dinner like a lion’, as his mother expressed it.

  He returned to work in an hour, very satisfied, luxuriating in the big feed of potatoes, cabbage and bacon which he had eaten.

  He left word with Bridie not to forget to get the paper off the breadman when she went for the bread. Going to look for the sleeper he found it missing, and this vexed him plenty.

  Thus was life, and a sensitive man bogged in it.

  The nettles, thistles and docks bloomed wildly at the backs of ditches. Life was very rich.

  A spirit still buried in the womb of emotion. Tarry hardly ever had experiences that could be named. But one evening shortly afterwards a young heifer had to be brought to the bull, and on that evening he came into contact with something that almost awakened him.

  His mother and sisters helped him with the heifer to the gate. They had intended bringing her to Kerley’s bull, the fee for which was only a half-crown, but when the heifer got out the yard gate she dashed up the Drumnay lane, and it’s a principle with the people to let a young beast go the way she chooses in a matter of this description. His mother handed him the five shillings which was the service fee for Reilly’s bull, a prize shorthorn, and Tarry was considering if he’d be able to slip back when his mother and sisters were gone into the house and ring her to Kerley’s bull and save a half-crown for himself. He had done that once before and saved not only a half-crown but the whole five bob, for he got the cow bulled by a young unlicensed bull that was grazing in McArdle’s field. He had encouraged his mother that a calf out of the famous double-dairy shorthorn that Reilly’s had at that time would be a real wonder, and when the calf grew up his mother was never done praising it. The only trouble in a case like this was that the cow mightn’t keep the bull the first time, and then you’d have to go back and would have the money spent. So he let the heifer go as she was inclined. She galloped up the road. He had a mind to go back for the bicycle, but changed his mind and slowly followed the heifer. He wondered if he would see Mary and he also hoped that the father had not been a joke and a jeer about his mother’s remarks in the market the previous week.

  Callan’s gate was open but luckily enough she did not see it. The heifer went out of sight round the turn where the hedge was high and overhung the lane. A slight shower had fallen making the dust of the road like velvet. His business seldom took him up this way, so that this evening’s walk was for him a mystical adventure.

  Places which he had not seen for a week seemed so mysterious, like places in a fantastic foreign land.

  As he passed Callan’s back lane he looked up towards the house where the trees were dark with greenery. He could see Mrs Callan standing on top of a pit of rotten mangolds staring into the distances of the southern townland. The father’s whistle which never became an air – he had no ear for music, nor one belonging to him for that matter – could be heard from the region of the dunghill behind the wooden sheds. May was not visible.

  He hurried to catch up with the heifer and found when he went round the next turn that she had strayed into Cassidy’s haggard and was nibbling in her wild way at some wizened old potatoes that lay against the wall of the boiler house. Mat Ward, the half-wit (an iron fool really), who worked off and on for Eusebius was squaring a dunghill in the yard; it was strange how Eusebius and his father could always get these loose-idiots to work for them for jaw-wages.

  ‘Will you give us a hand with this heifer?’ said Tarry.

  Mat laid down the graip with an air of profound wisdom and came slowly towards Tarry and the heifer.

  ‘Nice wee stuff ye have,’ said he. ‘A bit rough o’ the head all the same.’

  ‘She’ll have to be doing, Mat,’ said Tarry, anxious to get the beast away from the dangerous potatoes which could easily choke a cow beast.

  ‘She’ll take no hurt,’ said Mat.

  They drove the nervous animal on to the road again; Mat’s knowing scrutiny as he tried to get a line on the heifer from behind, amused Tarry very much.

  ‘She has the makings of a good bag,’ he said, ‘a bit shy in the left back quarter, but the makings of a good bag all the same.’

  Mat helped Tarry with the heifer round the next turn. Then he stood rubbing the seat of his trousers as he stared after them. There were no gates or gaps on the next stretch of road – until he would be passing Toole’s house. He was able to relax and nibble at the leaves of whitethorn as he went along. He wondered if he would see Mary Reilly. He did not wonder too much for she was far beyond his dreams. A man cannot love the impossible.

  On either side of him were the little fields. Three fields across was Carlin’s half-derelict house. The thatched part of the dwelling was down. The three brothers and two sisters lived in the small slated part. Queer.

  A woman was coming down the grass-grown path from Carlins’, and Tarry hung on to see who it might be. The gap onto the main Drumnay lane was at this point, so she’d have to pass him. The woman was Eusebius’ mother, a very fresh woman for her years and light on her feet. She had a sharp tongue, Tarry knew.

  ‘You’ll soon have a free house down there,’ she said right out for a start as if she had been thinking about the matter for some time previously.

  ‘How?’ asked Tarry, stupidly.

  ‘I hear that Mary is getting a man. If one goes they’ll all go.’

  ‘I never heard a word about it,’ said Tarry, truthfully.

  ‘Oh, and a good man, too.’ Changing the subject with that suddenness which one finds among people with something on their minds, she said: ‘I was just over at Carlins’ with a wee can of milk – their cow is dry – and do you know what I’m going to tell you, they’re a proud family. I left her a wee can of cow’s milk on the wall beside the garden every morning and evening, and when I come back for me empty can there it is – full of goat’s milk. Poor Maggie is up there, and to listen to her you’d swear that they didn’t owe anyone a penny. Nothing for her but talk of ladies and gentlemen. One of my girls is coming on her holidays next month, Tarry, and do you know, the last time she wrote she said not to forget to tell you that she was asking for you.’

  Tarry suspected nothing.

  But he knew why Mrs Cassidy was being so considerate for the Carlins. They were manoeuvring for an opening. Already they had got to store – by the way – several articles of value which the Carlins wanted to put out of the way of the bailiffs. A good Ransome mowing machine that Tarry could have been doing with, and the best iron land roller in the country. And never during saecula would these articles be given back. Oh, never.

  Tarry passed Jenny Toole’s whitewashed house and skirted the waste land which was the tail-end of what was once a big estate, ‘Whitestone Park’. At the moment there was some agitation to have the lands divided up among the small farmers, but as Tarry did not expect to be given any of this land he was inclined to frown on such greed.

  Now he had arrived at the entrance to Reilly’s farm. The heifer turned in the entrance without any trouble.

&n
bsp; Tarry rubbed his face and cursed himself for not shaving, in case he met Mary. The patch on the knee of his trousers also disturbed his self-confidence. If he had only put on his good trousers! He took off his cap and ran his fingers through his hair. He softened the stare of his eyes so as to look more gentle and poetical. Mary had been going to the convent and Tarry knew that convents taught girls to appreciate the poetic things. He giggled to himself thinking on the foolishness of nuns. Poetry is the most lustful and egotistical of spirits.

  Young Paddy Reilly saw the heifer coming and had the gate open. From some unseen place beyond the haggard the low, awful roar of the bull could be heard. Then he appeared profound and massive, pawing the earth in the corner of the big field beside the haggard.

  The Reillys were not aristocrats. The father was a small farmer’s son who by hard work and the capacity for making others work for him had graduated into the ranks of the semi-gentleman farmers. His farm ran to the Louth border and partook of some of the qualities of a Louth farm – big fields, big horses, big carts.

  Returning with his heifer, Tarry felt very disappointed at not having seen Mary Reilly.

  He was trying to sneak up close to the heifer to give her a smart blow of the ash plant on the spine – to take the hump off her back – when who should appear coming slowly around the bend only Mary. She was dressed in a light blue cotton dress and her long black hair hung loose over her shoulders. He had seen this girl many times before, but this was the first time she was revealed to him. Like the average tiller of the soil he could not see men and women in terms of sex. A mare was as big and strong as a horse, a cow was, in her way, as impressive as a bull. Women and men were just people living, not sexes.

  Tarry had never observed the sexual differences between men and women until this moment. Mary Reilly was tall, and if as Tarry’s mother had said she had a large bottom, Tarry suddenly realized now that this part of her was different from the bottoms of the ordinary country girls. All the girls, with the exception of May Callan, were squat, and as the country phrase had it – ‘duck-arsed’. They were made for work, for breeding, their centre of gravity was low. But here was someone who was made for joy, a breaker of hearts.