By the Lake

by John McGahern

  “Will it ever end?”

  “You should know that better than I do. You come from the place.”

  “If it came to an all-out conflict our people would render a very bloody account of themselves but they would probably lose,” Robert Booth said, making it clear he wanted the subject pursued no further.

  Kate got on well with Robert Booth. A part of her family came from the class he had so assiduously joined. He never brought presents and after an exchange of pleasantries he was shown his room. The visit was then as predictable as a timetable. He washed, walked around the lake, read a newspaper. The way he crackled the pages as he read created a space around the rocking chair. They knew him well enough to ignore him completely. They would have been rebuffed if they had enquired was there anything they could do. His mood changed noticeably when he put the newspaper aside: the time for drinks was drawing close.

  “It is a very great pleasure to be here,” he raised his glass and laughed his most agreeable laugh. Over dinner he told many stories. Like many very sociable people, he would never discuss people he worked with or anybody they knew in common unless they had been written off. Only when he spoke of paintings did something like feeling enter his voice.

  Kate asked about a Turner watercolour he owned that she admired. He had purchased it for a small sum when he was young.

  “It’s in Japan. At a Turner exhibition,” he laughed triumphantly. “Before Tokyo it was in Sydney. It does give me pleasure to think of all those people looking at it.”

  The next morning after breakfast he walked down to the lake. Later he sat in the white rocking chair on the porch and read. While he was reading, Bill Evans came. Ruttledge heard the loud knocking on the glass from within the house and when he reached the porch Robert Booth was about to open the door.

  Instead of following Ruttledge into the house, Bill Evans stood stubbornly outside and asked, “Does he smoke?”

  “He doesn’t but I have cigarettes within.”

  “Where is he from?” he demanded when he was finally seated.

  “From London. You’ve seen him several times before. Don’t you remember him from last summer?”

  “Begod, now I do.” A look of cunning crossed the sharp features. “Hasn’t he some big job?”

  “Yes. In London.”

  “Would yous be getting anything out of him?”

  “He’s a friend. Sometimes he gives us work.”

  “Is it paying work?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yous would want to be getting something out of him,” he said as he put his cup away and took hold of his stick.

  Ruttledge saw him to the gate, and as he was returning to the house he noticed that Robert Booth had stopped reading and was following Bill Evans with his eyes as he lifted the two buckets out of the fuchsias and headed towards the lake.

  “He looks like something out of a Russian novel,” he said.

  “He’s all ours, completely home-grown and mad alive. They were scattered all over the country when I was young. Those with English accents came mostly from Catholic orphanages around Liverpool. The whole business wasn’t a million miles from the slave trade.”

  “It’s not a pleasant story.”

  “Any of us could have found ourselves in his place.”

  “But we didn’t,” Robert Booth said firmly.

  At lunch he asked for a glass of wine, which was unusual, though occasionally they had seen him drink heavily into the late afternoon.

  “We’ve had a very long association now. I was going to bring it up last night at dinner but decided to wait,” he began.

  The head of layout and design was retiring. They had decided to split that department in two and to offer Kate one of the positions. The people who knew her were certain she could do the job well. He wasn’t able to put an exact figure on her salary but it would be considerably more than she had been paid in the past. They would have written but it was known he was coming on this visit.

  “The decision was completely unanimous, I’m glad to report.”

  “It’s very flattering,” Kate said.

  “It shouldn’t be all that great a move. Haven’t you kept that flat?”

  “It is rented now but that wouldn’t be a problem.”

  “What is the problem?”

  “Leaving here.”

  “There’s another thing,” Robert Booth said. “The people that run the firm now know and like you both, but there’s a whole new generation coming up. Naturally, they’ll want their own friends. People tend to forget quickly once you are no longer there.”

  A second bottle of wine was opened. Excitement and holiday entered the afternoon. The prospect of London in all its attractiveness was laid out in squares and streets and parks, shops and galleries, the winding river and the endless living stream of its people. It could be enjoyed with the lulling wine without the sharpness of the knowledge that it would only become their same lives again in different circumstances in a different place.

  “I’d also like to say it would give me a great deal of personal pleasure if you were both to move back to London.”

  “And it would be one of the pleasures of London to see you more often.”

  “This place could be kept on as a second home.”

  “We’ll have to think all of that out.”

  “Of course you would have no difficulty finding a position,” he turned to Ruttledge. “With us there’s no staff position open now but there will be.”

  “I doubt if I’d want a regular job again,” Ruttledge said. “It all depends on Kate.”

  “Remember. People forget,” Robert Booth said.

  Ruttledge changed into old clothes and went into the fields. After the wine and the heady excitement he was glad to lose himself in the mindlessness of the various tasks.

  Returning to the house, he saw Jamesie come through a gate at the back and stand for a moment. Almost nonchalantly, Jamesie moved along the cart path, bending low to pass the big window on the bank. Once past, he stood and listened intently, like a bird or an animal. Then he began to check the sheds, examine tools left lying around, test the posts of the unfinished shed, shaking his head in silent disapproval as he surveyed the skeleton of the roof. He entered the orchard and then the glasshouse. He spent a long time examining the herbs and flowers, picked and ate a ripe tomato, chewing studiously, and then headed out to the land towards the cattle and sheep. He had to pass very close to where Ruttledge stood. He was chewing on a long stalk of grass.

  “Hel-lo,” Ruttledge called softly as he passed.

  He whirled around, startled. “Blast you anyhow. Why hadn’t you the manners to show yourself?”

  “I was taking a leaf out of your book.”

  “It was a poor leaf, then,” he answered and held out his hand.

  “Why didn’t you go into the house?”

  “The big Englishman is there. He’s asleep in the porch, a book on his knee,” and he imitated a deep snoring sound.

  “He wouldn’t mind.”

  “No, no. I’ll be beating away. The robins don’t mix with the blackbirds.”

  There was a heavy, sweet perfume in the air. It came from wild woodbine that had climbed an old hawthorn close to the house and was still putting out pale yellow flowers in the high branches.

  Robert Booth was asleep in the porch. Ruttledge entered the house by the back. The black cat was sitting on Kate’s knee, the white paws opening and closing on the blue denim.

  “Fats goes to London!” she said laughing as Ruttledge entered the room, and the cat hearing the tone purred louder.

  “She’ll not like that.”

  “I’m not sure I’d like it either. It’s lovely to be asked.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t want to think just now.”

  “I caught Jamesie prowling round the house, inspecting everything. He even tasted your tomatoes in the glasshouse.”

  “Why wouldn’t he come in?”


  “He saw we had a visitor and wouldn’t.”

  Robert Booth felt refreshed when he woke. He showered, changed, went for a long walk round the shore and was in particularly good form when he returned to a dinner of steak and salad and wine. The steaks were cooked over a fire of dried oak on an iron grill the Shah had made for the fireplace in the small front room. As they cooked, grease dripped from the raised grill and flared in the red embers. Robert Booth sat in silence with a whiskey, watching the fire and the lights from the fire play on the white walls. At the table he came to life.

  He told stories they had heard before but they were still all interesting because Robert Booth was interesting, and they stayed up late.

  In the morning they could see that he had already left them; in spirit he was already in Dublin. “Write me or call if you have any questions,” he said as he embraced Kate. “Thank you for a wonderful visit. I hope I’ll be seeing you very soon in London. It was a very great pleasure.”

  “Thanks for coming. Thanks for everything.”

  “Are you staying in the Shelbourne?” Ruttledge asked as they drove to the station, passing green hedges and green fields and the odd farmhouse among the new bungalows.

  “Yes, but going out to dinner this evening,” and Ruttledge did not ask further.

  They arrived early at the small railway station because Robert disliked being pressed for time and did not mind waiting. When they checked the time of the train, he removed a book from his case.

  Robert Booth walked to a green bench beside the flowerbeds and opened the book. He did not look around at the other passengers waiting for the train. He would not welcome conversation or any interference. His life had already entered another of its closed compartments.

  Ruttledge went to an assistant manager he was friendly with in the bank about getting Frank Dolan a loan. “There should be no problem,” Joe Eustace said in his agreeable way after Ruttledge stated his business.

  Within a week Joe Eustace had the loan approved, subject to an interview Frank Dolan would have to undergo in Longford. That town was chosen because it was both close and far enough away for nobody to know their business.

  “He’ll have to say he intends to expand the business and employ more people. That’s bank policy: it looks better for the bank when they have to face the politicians, and the bank likes nothing more than lending money to a thriving business. He’ll have to say all that so that it goes in the report. Once he gets the loan he can do whatever he wants as long as he makes his monthly payments.”

  “Why can’t you do the interview yourself? That’s what we did years back when I got the loan.”

  “You were already a customer. We had more power back then as well. Now head office has the power. I know the man who’s doing the interview and I have put him in the complete picture. The loan is in the bag. It’s all arranged. It’s just a matter of going through the motions and him saying the right things.”

  Ruttledge wanted to drive Frank Dolan to Longford but he insisted stubbornly that they go in his old Toyota since it was on his business they were going. The exhaust was gone, as was the ignition key: the engine was started by crossing two sparking wires.

  “What does any of them do but go?” he said to Ruttledge as they battered towards Longford. Frank Dolan had a new haircut, was spruced and shaven, dressed in his dark Sunday suit and white shirt and wine-coloured tie. His nervousness gave vividness to his pleasant, sensitive face.

  “Do you want me to speak about the business of expansion and employing a young lad or two—or do you want to do that yourself?”

  “I haven’t the slightest intention of expanding anything or employing anybody,” he answered.

  “I know that but we have to say otherwise if we want to get the loan.”

  “I’ve been thinking that over. We could be setting a trap for ourselves. We could be going in away above our heads.”

  “It’s nothing like that,” Ruttledge explained with some exasperation. They had been through this twice before. “Once you get the money you can do whatever you want as long as you make the payments. Until we get the loan we have to agree to whatever they want.”

  “You’re sure it’s as simple as that? You’re sure it’s not some trap?”

  “Certain. Absolutely certain,” Ruttledge answered. “Is it the payments that have you worried?”

  “Not one little bit,” he said. “If they couldn’t be managed we might as well not be in business at all.”

  The bank in Longford was an impressive Victorian stone building in the middle of the town. They entered as the heavy door was about to close for the day. They were asked to wait for a few minutes while the last customers were being attended to. They were then led inside the counter and into a large office at the back. The bank official was a tall, athletic man. He stood to shake their hands, and he and Ruttledge spoke warmly of Joe Eustace before he invited them to sit.

  Ruttledge explained the background of the application, adding that while the business was profitable it had ceased to expand in recent years. Frank Dolan was a much younger man than the present owner and was anxious to expand the business and employ some young people. As the business thrived and expanded, he would certainly require further loans.

  “That seems highly satisfactory,” the official said as he wrote, remarking that the bank would require the deeds once the transfer was completed, and then began to read back to Frank Dolan what he had written. All the bank official needed was his agreement.

  “Oh no. Oh no,” Frank Dolan spoke. “I’d not want sight or light of those fellas round the place. They are dear bought. They’d annoy your head. You’d have to show them everything. It’d be far easier to do the thing yourself.”

  The official looked up, puzzled and somewhat amused.

  “We spoke about it on the way up,” Ruttledge intervened. “Frank is, I think, unnecessarily worried about having to take on too many young people. I told him he’d be free to do that at his own pace.”

  Frank Dolan’s face was pale. All his attention was fixed on the bank official.

  “I know there can be difficulties with young people and of course you’d be free to expand as you see fit,” the official said helpfully, but Frank Dolan had now discovered his own voice and would not be contained.

  “No,” he said. “I’d cut back. In my opinion Mister Maguire has been stretching himself far too much. I’d cut back. I’d do far less than we are doing now.”

  There was silence in the room. Outside the iron-barred window hung the dark fruit and rough leaves of an elder tree. Ruttledge made a couple of attempts to rescue the interview. The official did his very best. The disaster had all the fascination of watching a vehicle set out on a predictable journey and then without warning see a wheel come loose and roll unpredictably along until it wobbled and fell flat. When they rose it seemed that they had been no more than a moment in the room, but the big electric clock on the office wall told that they had been more than an hour there.

  Out in the busy evening street they felt as unreal for a time as if they had just emerged from a cinema, the shadows they had been part of more real than the substantial buildings and the passing traffic. Frank Dolan looked as if he had gone into shock, he who had been so articulate such a short time before in talking himself out of the loan.

  “I think we went down,” he said.

  “We didn’t do too well. Would you like a drink or not?” Ruttledge wanted to soften the raw taste of failure with some little act or ceremony before they left the town.

  “I don’t drink,” Frank responded bluntly.

  “I know. I was thinking of tea or coffee—or a glass of water.”

  “Well in that case I’m taking you. It was my business that brought you to the town,” he insisted.

  “Maybe we’ll leave it for another time. There’ll be a better time,” Ruttledge said.

  The noisy Toyota battered slowly home. The rows of pleasure-boats moored along the Shannon at Rooskey appea
red to lift Frank Dolan’s spirits briefly.

  “I suppose it was a day out anyhow,” he said hopefully.

  “It was a day out. It was a very interesting day.”

  When it was considered carefully, all Frank Dolan had done was to be too honest and too self-expressive. Each quality alone was dangerous enough: combined together they were a recipe for disaster.

  “We are not giving up. We’ll find some way. There has to be some way,” Ruttledge said when Frank Dolan pulled in beside his own parked car at the narrow bridge in Shruhaun.

  “What will we say to his lordship if he asks anything?” Frank Dolan said.

  “We’ll say nothing.”

  “What if he puts put two and two together? He’s as quick as lightning in that way.”

  “Tell him I’m looking after everything,” Ruttledge said. Frank Dolan was now downcast and uncertain after the strength of his performance in the bank. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll think of something.”

  As soon as Kate saw Ruttledge, she said, “The meeting didn’t go well?”

  “No. It could hardly have gone worse. We entered the meeting with the loan as good as guaranteed and left without a prospect of a loan. Frank talked a blue streak. He talked himself out of the loan.”

  “Usually he is careful and watchful.”

  “Not on this occasion. I think he felt he was getting into something above his head, that he was being trapped into the loan under false pretences. All he had to do was keep his mouth shut but he talked as if speech had just been invented.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll have to deal with the Shah first. He’ll be like a bloody lion if he finds out what happened.”

  Very late that evening the Mercedes drew up outside the porch. He had left the sheepdog behind.

  “Well?” he cleared his throat as soon as he was seated. “What happened?”

  “Nothing much,” Ruttledge said cautiously.

  “You don’t have to tell,” he said. “He went to Longford and made a holy show of himself. Once they got a look at him they wouldn’t entertain him for a minute. They threw him out.”