Amongst Women

by John McGahern

  Sheila and Mona came from Dublin for the weekend. This time Michael hid rather than flaunted what was going on. They were suspicious of him but they had to be back at their office desks on Monday and hadn’t time enough to find out. Moran’s isolation meant that no one had come to him and no one was going to risk letting anything slip to Rose when she went to the shops.

  For Nell these weeks were the best of her life, weeks she would look back on as a lost happiness she had strayed into at the wren-boys’ dance in the barn. Yet somehow, mysteriously, it had slipped out of her grasp. Throughout the affair she was the more responsible of the two. That she had never gone to school a day longer than the legal requirement and had worked all her life with her hands made her value education more than those to whom it was open. ‘Are you sure you’re not ruining everything by skipping school like this?’

  ‘I’m finished with school. I’m not going back. This has nothing to do with it.’ The fiercest urge was to break out of his life as it was. He could not endure his life in the house any longer. By going the way he was going the crisis was certain to come from without. By doing what he was doing he was certain to bring it on. Not until then would it have to be faced.

  ‘You’ll never get the chance of school again,’ she said.

  ‘You’ll never get anything again,’ he responded bitterly.

  ‘What will you do then?’

  ‘Maybe I could go back to America with you?’

  She looked at his childish egotism and innocence and bent towards him in a wildness of wishing; but her commonsense told her that it could never be, that all the world was against it.

  ‘You’d not find it easy in America,’ she said.

  ‘I’d manage,’ he laughed confidently. ‘If we can’t go to America why don’t we drive to Sligo?’

  They spent all of the next day in Sligo but their days together were running out. Nell’s money was almost gone. She began to feel a little guilty that she had spent so much of her time and money on Michael instead of on her own family though he was not hard on money and any bits of money of his own he got his hands on he spent it all on her.

  ‘I’ll have to be going soon, Michael,’ she said to him one night as they sat in the car watching a white moon above Lough Key casting a bright roadway on the choppy waters.

  Without warning he began to cry, not sure whether he was crying for his own loss or for Nell, having to leave this quiet place and face back to the uncaring world of America, She took him in her arms, cradling him, brushing back his hair until he turned towards her.

  ‘You should go back to school,’ she told him. ‘That way you’ll have a better job later on in your life.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m finished with school.’

  ‘What’ll you do?’

  ‘Maybe I could go out to you in America before long?’ he asked again. It fell with such a sweetness that she did not want to question further or to see or think what they were doing beyond this hour or if they were doing anything at all.

  If he was waiting for his mind to be made up for him by provoking action from without, it came with alarming speed the following evening. Nell and he had crossed the border to Enniskillen for the Thursday market that morning. He had come home as usual with his books around six. Moran was seated very still in the car chair. Rose was bustling round the house. There was no place set for his meal at the table. Before a word was spoken he sensed that he was in danger.

  ‘We had a visitor today,’ Moran said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Relax,’ Moran said sarcastically. ‘Your friend Brother Michael from the school. He came out to inquire about you. He thought you were sick. It seems you’ve not been seen in school since Christmas.’

  ‘I wasn’t able to go to school any more,’ he began to cry.

  ‘And why, may I inquire?’

  ‘I couldn’t face it any more.’

  ‘We are surprised at you, Michael,’ Rose said.

  ‘How did you spend your time?’

  ‘I just stayed away.’

  ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘Just here and there.’

  ‘Where’s here-and-there? I never heard of it.’

  ‘Around the town, just here and there.’ He felt cornered.

  ‘You try to lie and bluff as well! I made a few inquiries after the Brother went. I discovered Miss Morahan that’s home from America has been chauffeuring you round the entire country.’

  There was no point in any further answers.

  ‘I don’t know why you did it to us, Michael,’ Rose said.

  ‘Rose and myself feed you, give you a roof above your head, send you to school and that’s the thanks we get.’

  Michael was silent. The pauses between the sobs were longer.

  ‘You have nothing to say. You’re not even sorry.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he sniffed.

  ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to be taught a lesson as well. I want you to go to your room, take off your clothes and I’ll see you there in a few minutes. Maybe we can still sort this business out just between the two of us.’ So quiet and authoritative was Moran’s voice that Michael actually moved to go to the room; suddenly he realized what he was being asked to do and stopped.

  ‘No!’ the boy shouted in fear and outrage.

  ‘You’ll do what I say if you want to stay on in this house.’ Moran moved with great quickness from the chair but the boy was too strong. He easily parried his father’s lunge and ran from the house.

  ‘He’ll have to come back,’ Moran breathed heavily. ‘And when he does that gentleman will have to be taken within one inch of his life.’

  He did not think of going back. He walked all the way to Morahan’s, high on the Plains. The car was outside their asbestos-roofed cottage. A younger sister of Nell’s came to the door and asked him in.

  ‘No, thanks, Brigid,’ he flashed a wan smile. ‘I want to see Nell.’ And when she came to the door he said, ‘He found out about the school. He was like a madman. He could kill someone. I ran away.’

  ‘Are you going to go back?’

  ‘I’m going to England,’ he said decisively. ‘If I could get to Dublin the crowd there would give me the fare. I wonder if you’d loan me the money for the train.’

  ‘When does it go?’

  ‘In the morning.’

  ‘Where will you stay till then?’

  ‘I’ll find somewhere, some shed or some place,’ he said dramatically.

  ‘Are you sure you want to go like this?’

  ‘I’ll hitch if you can’t give me the fare.’

  ‘I’ll drive you to Dublin,’ she said. ‘Won’t you come into the house while I’m getting ready?’

  ‘I don’t want to face into the house the way I am.’

  ‘You better sit in the car.’

  He sat in the car and played the radio, fiddling with the knobs. Fits of rage and fear would shake him every time he thought of Moran, then change to self-pity. By the time Nell came he was tired of playing the radio. She was dressed up and carried a suitcase which she put in the back of the car.

  They drove past the house and school, through Longford and Mullingar, towns they had been happy in for whole days. Now only the bars were open, the lighted streets wintry and empty, the silent rows of parked cars funereal along the sidewalk.

  ‘He told me to go to the room. He told me to take off all my clothes and wait for him in the room. I ran out of the house.’

  ‘He must be crazy.’

  ‘Once he made Luke take off all his clothes in the room. We heard the sound of the beating.’

  ‘Would Luke help you if you got to London?’

  ‘I know he would. Luke always did whatever he said he would do.’

  ‘There’s no use going to your sisters at this hour. We might as well stay the night in a hotel. I’ll get you to your sisters early in the morning,’

  ‘Would they let us stay the night in a hotel?’

  ‘As long as it is
a big hotel they won’t mind,’ she laughed. ‘As long as we can pay.’

  ‘Are you sure it won’t be too much?’

  ‘Next week I’ll be in America,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll write to you,’ he said and she just pressed his knee as she drove through Enfield. After Maynooth she told him to watch out for hotels. On the outskirts of the city the West Country looked large and nondescript and they had vacancies. Accentuating her American accent she paid in cash and the girl in reception hardly looked at them as they filled the forms and were handed the room keys. The room was plain but comfortable. As soon as they saw the room they both realized how ravenous they were. Downstairs the dining room was empty but still open. ‘We might as well treat ourselves this evening.’ Nell encouraged him to pick whatever he wanted from the menu. She had steak, he an enormous mixed grill with chips. They had to wait longer for the food to be served in the empty dining room than it took them to eat. Unused to such places, Michael spoke in whispers. Only when he laughed did his voice ring out.

  All through the night they made love. The anxiety of his years soon gave way to tenderness and great gratitude. Each time that she thought he was at last slipping into sleep he would come into her again. She received him as if he were both man and child, his slenderness cancelled by strength, his unsureness by pride; and she took him too each time as if she were saying a slow and careful farewell to a youth she herself had to work too hard ever to have had when she was young. Not until morning did they fall into a sleep of pure exhaustion and as soon as she woke she roused him and drove him to the part of the city where his sisters lived.

  ‘I’ll write,’ he said in the empty morning street.

  ‘You have the address?’

  ‘I have.’ He tapped his jacket.

  ‘I’ll write as well.’

  ‘You’ll see me in New York.’ He rapped the hollow roof of the car with his fist as a signal of affection before the car moved away.

  The whole street appeared to be sleeping. A milkman delivered bottles to doorsteps from an electric float, the motor whirring when it moved. He was a long time knocking before there was any sound at all within the house where Sheila and Mona lived. Then an upstairs window opened. Mona leaned out in her nightclothes. Her surprise vied with total disbelief.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded.

  ‘I ran away,’ he said.

  ‘What are you coming here for?’

  ‘I’m going to England.’

  ‘I’ll come down,’ she said and closed the window.

  He heard her speak rapidly to someone in the room, probably Sheila. It seemed a very long time before anyone came to the door. They were both dressed when the door opened.

  ‘How did you get this far?’ Sheila demanded.

  ‘I hitched.’

  ‘In the middle of the night?’

  ‘I got several small lifts and then a milk lorry took me in this morning,’ He told them the story of how he ran away much as he had told Nell but he did not mention her at all. ‘He told me to go to the room and take off my clothes and wait for him there.’

  ‘He’ll kill us if we give you the fare.’

  ‘I’ll have to get it somehow. I’m not going home.’

  They fried sausages and eggs and bacon, made him tea and toast. The man and woman who owned the house came down and were told the story. The man was quiet and wore his postman’s uniform. In spite of their fear both girls were beginning to get caught up in the excitement of the drama and when they went to work Sheila took Michael with her into the Kildare Street offices. There the excitement continued. Before long the whole building seemed to have called in on Sheila. A young man, polite and good-looking, was running away from home. To grey civil servants it brought back the glow of their own youth. If it were not for the obligatory procedures that had to be adhered to, he would probably have been offered a civil service position there and then. ‘It’s terrible. We don’t know what to do,’ Sheila kept repeating but she was enjoying the stir and the attention.

  In her secretive way she had already made up her mind how she was going to take care of the situation but she continued to seek counsel which was drawing sympathy her way. She had a boyfriend now, a civil servant like herself, and Mona and he joined them for lunch in the huge canteen. Michael was having a fine time. Here were people and excitement and noise and bustle. Gone was the oppression of Moran’s house. His charm would work here as well as anywhere. But Sheila had different plans. ‘You can’t go to England,’ she said.

  ‘Why? I’m not going home.’

  ‘You haven’t finished school. If you finish school you can go anywhere. If you leave now you can be nothing but a labourer for the rest of your life.’

  She ignored his protests that it was his own business. She was going to see Moran and Rose that evening. If Moran wouldn’t agree to take him back he could stay in Dublin with them. He had only another couple of years to do after which he would have all the choices he wanted, even labouring if that was what he wanted to do. The way he was going about it he would have no choices.

  She took the train to Great Meadow to face Moran. So much time had passed without news of Michael that they had grown anxious and were relieved to see her. Moran had no reason to imagine that she might not be completely on his side in the matter.

  ‘So he ran to you,’ Moran said.

  ‘He hitched.’

  ‘I have a plan for that boy,’ Moran said.

  It was simple. They would bring Michael home and the whole house would help supervise a beating that Moran would administer. That way it would be properly done and they would be legally protected; besides, Moran was not strong enough any more to handle him on his own: ‘So he’ll be taught a lesson he’ll never forget for the rest of his life.’

  ‘He’d not come home for us. The only way he’ll come home and go back to school is if everything can be forgotten.’

  ‘There’d be no need to tell him.’

  ‘I’d have to tell him,’ Sheila said doggedly.

  ‘Of course I have no right to expect any consideration in this house,’ Moran shouted; but there was little he could do.

  Sheila went back to Dublin and she and Mona brought Michael down a few days later. They had to promise him that if there was trouble again they would give him every help to stay in Dublin or to go to London.

  ‘Do your best,’ they urged him. ‘If it doesn’t work out we’ll give you every help. Two more years you’ll be finished school and you can go anywhere you want.’

  When he entered the house it was with extreme watchfulness and a self-conscious sheepishness that was almost comic.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ a grieved Moran looked away as he put out his hand to him. ‘All my family are always welcome back to this house, without exceptions.’

  Sheila’s boyfriend, Sean Flynn, had driven them all down. He attracted most of Moran’s attention who assumed she would not have drawn him into a family situation as delicate as the present one if she did not intend to marry him. Sean Flynn was flattered; he was used to pleasing. They talked about politics, the land the Flynns farmed in Clare, his huge family and they both agreed that the family was the basis of all society and every civilization. Moran enjoyed himself and felt cheated when the time came for them to head back for Dublin.

  ‘The next time you must come for a proper visit,’ Moran said as he shook his hand by the car.

  ‘If I’m asked,’ Sean Flynn turned to tease Sheila.

  ‘You’ll be asked,’ Moran laughed. ‘You should never give these women too much sway. They’d have you in leg-irons before you’d know.’

  It seemed that Sean Flynn had won her father’s approval. ‘That’ll do now,’ Sheila said, hiding her confusion and pleasure by arranging things in the back of the car.

  Michael was pale and apprehensive in the house but Moran did not as much as look at him.

  ‘That Sean Flynn seems an intelligent, well brought up young man,’ Moran said as h
e took out his beads for the Rosary.

  ‘I’m glad for Sheila,’ Rose said. ‘She needs someone quiet.’

  ‘Your bed is aired,’ she said very gently to Michael after the prayers were said. ‘I’m sure you must be worn out.’

  ‘I think I’ll go to bed then,’ the boy said. He didn’t know whether to slip away or to go up to his father as usual and try to kiss him good night.

  ‘Go up and kiss Daddy,’ Rose whispered when she saw him hesitate.

  Moran held up his face to be kissed. His eyes were almost closed. The whole aspect was one of invoking some higher power to help him fulfil his fatherly duty. The boy touched the stubble more than the lips before backing away.

  ‘Good night, Daddy.’

  ‘Good night, son. God bless you.’

  The very next day he had to face back into school. He was welcomed by the Brothers as if he had come back after a very long illness, for Sheila had called at the monastery on her way to Dublin and blamed his absence on some difficulty at home.

  ‘You know yourself that you have one of the best heads in the whole school,’ Brother Superior Gerald flattered him gently. ‘If you get down to study now you can do anything. You’ll have the whole world before you. But if you throw in the towel you’ll be nothing.’

  The words were like an old refrain that he was sick of. The new attention, even adulation, from the other boys he found irksome. He could not endure the school – filing into classrooms, listening to arid words, watching meaningless diagrams chalked on the blackboard: it was as if everything was specially designed to drive him crazy. He knew he could not go on like this. Nell had gone. All his life seemed to be elsewhere.

  On the road her blue car passed him. One of the younger Morahans was driving. They waved but made no effort to stop. Alone, he cried out and cursed. The small alder and sally trees along the road, the brown clumps of dead rushes down to the flood waters of Drumharlow did not appear to bow in the friendly way of long familiarity. They were just bushes; worse than hostile, they were useless. He could not stay. He could not go away. Without any definite plan he would act in such a way that they would be forced to drive him away.