Tarry Flynn

by Patrick Kavanagh

  ‘Chu – father – dog – to hell – father.’

  The priest kept his dignity and never relaxed the hauteur of his sided head. He seemed to be staring at the chimney of the house.

  The woman succeeded in getting a kick at the dog, and this and the sound of Eusebius’ cart coming down the road drew the animal away, for the dog had a warm regard for Eusebius, preferring him to his own master.

  Having bid the woman the time of day Father Daly said: ‘In the words of Shakespeare, Mrs Flynn:

  A little learning is a dangerous thing,

  Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring.’

  ‘Pope,’ said Tarry under his breath, too low for the priest to hear, but loud enough to flatter his own ego.

  ‘Yes, father,’ whimpered the woman.

  The cart approaching had stopped among the bushes and its stopping drew attention to its presence.

  ‘Finnegan’s cart,’ remarked the priest.

  ‘Or Eusebius’,’ said the mother.

  ‘Finnegan’s,’ dogmatized the priest, who took a great delight in knowing ordinary things.

  Neither mother nor son contradicted him. Tarry was pleased at the priest’s attitude. He was going to argue on the higher plane and that suited Tarry perfectly. He was not so pleased when Father Daly said in a declamatory tone: ‘This son of yours is a perfect fool, Mrs Flynn. A perfect fool. Yes, he takes on to know things that men have spent years in colleges to learn. Why don’t you get him a wife? The other night, I understand he was at this cross-roads of Drumnay sowing the seeds of doubt in the minds of decent men.’

  ‘But –’ Tarry was about to defend himself, but his mother standing one side of the priest gave him a look of mingled hate and pity that killed the spirit in him.

  ‘Oh my God, father,’ said the mother piteously.

  ‘Yes, Mrs Flynn, talking about religion to fools, that is what we spend years in colleges for.’

  During a pause in the priest’s remarks the woman was able to get in a bit of flattery. ‘I heard people to say, father, that out from the bishop you were the educatedest man in the diocese.’

  Father Daly smiled. ‘The bishop is a very great scholar, Mrs Flynn, a very great scholar. You’ll be doing a fine job for God and Ireland, Mrs Flynn, if you get this man married and settled down.’

  ‘Isn’t that what I’d like, father,’ said she. ‘But sure God help us I can’t see much future for girls in this place at all. If the girls were married I’d be only too glad to see him bringing in a wife. None of the other marriageable men of this place believe in making a move at all. What do you make of them, father?’

  Up against this problem of the decay of the will to continue the human species theology was helpless, and the priest changed the conversation sharply to the weather and the crops.

  The woman was disappointed in the priest. She thought him as blind to the ways of the world as her son. She had wanted to raise the question of the Finnegans and the Carlins and other matters of political importance, but he was beyond such details.

  ‘We’re having some trouble with the Finnegans,’ said she.

  ‘Very hot tempered indeed,’ said he casually.

  Tarry sidled away and the woman and the priest began to discuss the fowl, a subject in which Father Daly took an interest.

  Tarry listened from the doorway of the hen house, pretending to be examining the hinges of the door.

  Eusebius was delaying up the road till the priest went away. Tarry took the scythe and went to the hay-field.

  As he went off he could see the priest’s face beam with pleasure. Father Daly liked to see a man going to do his day’s work.

  As far as he could now gather, his mother was trying to impress upon the priest the importance of getting the deed of the farm through as well as the lesser matters of keeping Joe Finnegan quiet and stirring the men to get married.

  Death was in the atmosphere.

  Only the yellow weeds in the meadow were excited by living.

  That was May Callan now on her bicycle going off to work in the factory.

  The next day Paddy Reilly sent a man with a pair of horses and a mowing machine to cut Flynn’s hay, that being the arrangement come to when Tarry helped at the spraying of Reilly’s potatoes.

  The day after that was the fair day and his mother and two sisters, Mary and Aggie, went to the town.

  Bridie was in great humour at the idea of the other sisters leaving to start a restaurant in the town.

  ‘That’ll be the cooking that slept without,’ said she.

  He went to the hay-field to make the hay, making it up in windrows, where it was light on the heights. Tomorrow he would have his sisters to help him. The dry earth under his feet was slippery, but the mown hay was filled with memories of life. The scent of the wild woodbine in the hedge bedrugged his mind until he felt no worry. He was a very tiny creature in the middle of a large field.

  Beyond the hedge was Brady’s, but today nobody was about the house. He concluded that they had gone to the fair. Even if they were at home he was determined to have no more to do with Molly.

  He watched the bright yellow frogs leaping about on the dry earth, and the insects that crawled in the ruts. He got down on his knees and began to study a beetle that lay on its back. For no reason at all but only because it existed and he existed.

  The hoarse caw of hungry crows sounded from the plantations in the Whitestone Park.

  The whole world was gone to the fair and he had it all to himself.

  That day when he went home for his dinner he found a letter awaiting him on the dresser. The letter was from his uncle Petey, who to Tarry’s knowledge had only written about twice in twenty-five years. He was then, according to the letter, with a circus in Tullamore – Ringmaster.

  What would Mrs Flynn say if she heard about that? The uncle hinted that he might call if in the vicinity.

  The mother and two daughters came home filled with excitement. They had rented a shop in the main street and were planning to have a restaurant going for the next fair day.

  ‘Waiting for the bleddy geldings to make a move,’ said the mother, ‘is nothing but foolishness. An odd bag of praties or a few heads of cabbage and little things like that will put a bone in your business,’ she said, the feeling of prosperity in her expression. ‘No need for new-fangled cooking. Give the men then-fill and that’s all they want. Lord O! Come here.’

  She was looking out the back window. Tarry went to help her to look. Eusebius was coming up the road driving a number of bullocks before him. ‘One – two – three, four, five, six,’ the mother counted. ‘That’s the man will make a spoon or spoil a horn. I must go out and have a talk with him to see how much he gave for them.’

  Tarry followed her out, for he wanted to have a word with Eusebius too.

  ‘Ah ha, it’s you that’s the right industrious boy that’ll have a thing, not like this man of mine that I don’t know what class of a sling-slang he is. You gave a brave penny for them, Eusebius.’

  Eusebius let the cattle wander up the road and he continued talking with great enthusiasm when they broke into Callan’s field of oats.

  ‘How much do you think, Mary?’

  ‘Did you give ten apiece, Eusebius?’

  ‘I did and the rest, Mary.’

  ‘And they’re worth it. When they get a bit of grass they’ll be wonderful animals, Eusebius. There’s no doubt about it we’re only in the ha’penny place with you, Eusebius. In the ha’penny place. You don’t be at the curse-o’-God books, troth you do not – This man here –’

  ‘We’re only in the ha’penny place with him, Mary.’

  There was a hardness about Eusebius’ speech and behaviour this evening. He gave the idea of power and seemed to be losing his soft feminine way of going on.

  ‘I’ll see you later,’ said he to Tarry who, when he got the opportunity, had a word in private with his neighbour. ‘I’ll be down the road in about an hour.’

  �
��I wouldn’t let them about me place,’ said the mother later to her son, referring to Eusebius’ cattle. She murmured to herself: ‘Five of as hungry a cattle as ever I saw. Must have bought them from some of the long-nosed scutch-grass farmers of Monaghan. Give us a hand off with this pot.’ They shifted the pot. ‘Why don’t you take pattern by Eusebius?’ said the mother. ‘The song the blackbird sang to Paddy MacNamee is the truest song ever sung – “have it or do without it”. These pair will be going to Shercock one of these days to start an eating-house and in no time you’d have a free house here. I think you’ll have rain, for I have this corn on me wee toe and it’s at me again. I wonder would you get the razor blade and pare it for me…

  ‘Oh, that’s the boy that’ill have a thing when we’re all going hungry behind the hay. Mind now, don’t draw the blood. I think, now, I put a sprag in the Finnegans’ wheel over that law case. Between ourselves you could have worse neighbours. I’d rather them a damn sight than this sneaky Eusebius that you’d think butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. Oh, it’s you that could have the good time here. You know I’m not too contented about that solicitor, though Father Daly said he’d see about it. O, please God it will come all right. You that could be the independent man…’

  The mother brought the crocks up from the dairy and cleaned them in the kitchen so that she could enjoy the gossip with her son who was now, in her own words, ‘coming to his milk’.

  In a sing-song dreamy voice she began to build up a picture of his future for him.

  ‘I wouldn’t prevent you bringing in a woman here and I wouldn’t be too stiff about money either. Sure there’s not one in the parish cares less for money than I do or would more like to see you with your pockets full when you went out – so long as you wouldn’t spend it.

  ‘If the Lord spared us all you could have your nice pony and trap to bring us to Mass of a Sunday and devil than the beggars. I wouldn’t have to be looking at them galloping past me the way they do. Mind you I wouldn’t say a ha’porth to an odd little read of the books so long as you didn’t make a male of them. This house will be empty shortly, these pair are going to Shercock next Wednesday – and in here again they’ll never show their noses if I can help it. Could keep a pair of horses and a pony all the year round… I wonder what the devil’s father them people wanted to know about the hen. The same inspectors have us polluted, if it’s not the washing of the eggs, it’s the bulls. There’s a wee grain of rice there in the pot if you’d like it. Oh, it’s you that could tell them all to kiss your arse.’

  She carried the two crocks to the dairy with an air of deepest contentment, her talk wandering on towards the fulfilment of her dream as she groped about in the dairy.

  Outside it was raining on the leaves of the lilac and the stones in the street glistened. The world that stretched east was so sorrowful this evening; and yet so beautiful.

  If a man could only get his desire he could enjoy life and all the magic that was in common earth. But Tarry was a sensitive man, not a countryman, but merely a man living. And life was the same everywhere. He walked in a maze through the street, leaned over the bars of the road gate. He was always expecting something. Down that silent road something or someone different, not of this world, seemed to be about to come. That bend hid – what did it hide? His destiny, perhaps.

  On the Thursday following he drove into Shercock with a load of new potatoes and other things for his sisters. The sisters left home the day before. The evening before they were due to leave Petey Meegan called and did his best to persuade them to stay. There was no future in an eating-house in a small town like Shercock that hadn’t even a railway running to it.

  Mary pointed out that there were the buses now. And anyhow she wouldn’t stay if he was thirty years younger ‘and that wouldn’t be so very young.’

  ‘Go home and buy yourself a blessed candle,’ said she to him.

  ‘I don’t mind what you were up to this… ’ he started to say but she cut him off.

  ‘You poor fool, it’s the Last Sacraments you ought to be thinking of. You and your fifty! You’re not trusting to sixty.’

  ‘It’s a long road there’s not a turn on,’ said Petey going out the door with his tail between his legs.

  ‘A short one there’s not a cow-dung on,’ retorted Mary. ‘Thanks be to God,’ she sighed when he had gone. ‘I never felt in such good form.’

  ‘I don’t know so much about that,’ said the mother.

  ‘You know well,’ said the girl, ‘and it’s not his age either, old as he is. There’s something unnatural about that man. I heard Eusebius talking about his carry-on. I wouldn’t like to eat the eggs his hens lay.’

  Tarry, sitting on the load of meal, vegetables and new potatoes remembered that hint of Eusebius’ and wondered what he meant.

  Then he forgot as he turned at Drumnay cross-roads and the song of the axle changed to a low solemn hum on the dusty silent road.

  It was the day after the market and the town was deserted. He delivered his load, bought the paper, a packet of cigarettes and three sweet buns. The sisters gave him tea.

  He was bringing home two bags of cement and a couple of boards for the repair of the stables. In the hardware shop he met a man who said to him: ‘I saw a friend of yours in Longford a week ago, an uncle of yours, I think.’

  That uncle was coming nearer to his native place. Mrs Flynn would not be pleased.

  Father Markey’s car was standing outside the post office. The priest himself came out as Tarry was passing on his way home and Tarry tried to look as decent as possible. The priest was making preparations for the big concert and dance that was to be held in the hall the following Sunday night and in the quietness of his proud heart Tarry had dreams of being invited by Father Markey to take part. He felt that he would be able to rehabilitate himself with Mary Reilly if he once got the chance to flower forth in his real colours of genius. In spite of what he might pretend the priest was hardly blind to the fact that Tarry was well above the average man in ability. He could scarcely pass him over. The thing would be too obvious.

  The priest gave him a quick glance as he entered his car and he did not seem too unfriendly.

  In his conversations with Eusebius and his own mother he passed the coming event over as a thing unworthy of his consideration. ‘Just a bunch of poor ignorant people trying to amuse themselves,’ was how he described it.

  Privately he was dreaming, dreaming. This was a great cultural event and right into his barrow.

  Sometimes he took an unholy pleasure in imagining that he had been passed over for one of the leading parts on the stage – it showed them all up as a crowd of ignoramuses. This self-pitying torture was too great to endure for long and he returned to his dreams. That had been going on for the previous two weeks since the news of the event had become warm. Day after day he had been expecting the curate’s car to come up the road and the curate to ask him to get ready for the big role.

  On the day that Father Daly had called he did himself fair justice, he thought. He had put himself well forward in the priest’s good books. But as the big event approached and he was neither asked to take part nor was in possession of any inside information as to what was being planned, he had that awkward, embarrassing feeling that comes over a man when he finds that his talents are not indispensable to mankind. It seemed that the utterly ridiculous was about to happen – he not to be asked.

  Saturday evening came. Meeting Eusebius – who, as far as he knew was in the same boat – he threw out a few hints about the concert in the hope that Eusebius would talk without realizing that Tarry was in the dark.

  ‘I hear all the tickets are gone,’ said Eusebius.

  ‘What!’ said Tarry.

  ‘Did you not get one?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be seen dead at an affair of that kind. You didn’t chance to hear who’s going to be performing, Eusebius?’

  ‘Don’t you know, the usual – all the educated people, the three schoolmaste
rs, the stationmaster and the postman that’s what-you-might-call the right singer. You know you want a bit of education to go up on a stage,’ Eusebius said without irony. He was quite sincere.

  He said he heard that notable artistes had been booked from places as far distant as Castleblaney and Dundalk – and the band was coming all the way from Clones. Tarry was choked with grief and humiliation.

  ‘Wouldn’t you be as good on the stage as any of them?’ he managed to say.

  ‘Jabus now, sure wouldn’t you be as good as me?’

  Wasn’t Eusebius the pitiful fellow, lacking any self-respect or regard for the inner qualities of a man. Tarry never breathed a word about his own ambitions, and all he could do as he went about his work that evening was to carry on the favourite and futile tradition of the Gaelic race – cursing the concert and the promoters of it. He wished that it might rain bucketfuls on the Sunday evening, and in his spiteful day-dream and ill-wish he saw two car-loads of the principal artistes in a fatal accident just outside the village. The accident would have to happen before the event so that they wouldn’t have the pleasure of collecting the money. He hated Father Markey and he was determined to let the cat out of the bag as to his knowledge of the Church, and how It was not sound. He could ruin the Faith in that parish.

  Eusebius hadn’t told his companion everything, for the next evening when Tarry went down to the village, in the last forlorn hope that before it was too late the curate, the police, the schoolmasters and the stationmaster might see the light and realize the laughing-stock they were making of themselves, he found that Eusebius had been offered a job at the concert – carrying water from the pump to make tea for the visitors, and making himself generally useful. Eusebius had scarcely an eye for Tarry as he hurried to the pump beside the graveyard for ‘water for the tay for the swanks’.

  ‘And why the hell didn’t you tell a fella? you’re too bleddy mean.’

  Eusebius laid down his two cans of water with the consciousness of the honour which had been conferred upon him and slowly lit a cigarette.