The Best of Frank O'Connor

by Frank O'Connor

  One autumn evening he came back. For days she had been expecting him; quite suddenly she had realized that he would return, that everything was not over between them, and very placidly accepted the fact.

  He seemed to have grown older and maturer in his short absence; one felt it less in his words than in his manner. There was decision in it. She saw that he was rapidly growing into a deferred manhood, and was secretly proud of the change. He had a great fund of stories about his wanderings (never a word of the mythical cousins); and while she prepared his supper, she listened to him, smiling faintly, almost as if she were not listening at all. He was as hungry now as the first evening she met him, but everything was easier between them; he was glad to be there and she to have him.

  ‘Are you pleased I came?’ he asked.

  ‘You know I’m pleased.’

  ‘Were you thinking I wouldn’t come?’

  ‘At first I thought you wouldn’t. You hadn’t it in your mind to come back. But afterward I knew you would.’

  ‘A man would want to mind what he thinks about a woman like you,’ he grumbled good-humouredly. ‘Are you a witch?’

  ‘How would I be a witch?’ Her smile was attractive.

  ‘Are you?’ He gripped her playfully by the arm.

  ‘I am not and well you know it.’

  ‘I have me strong doubts of you. Maybe you’ll say now you know what happened? Will you? Did you ever hear of a man dreaming three times of a crock of gold? Well, that’s what happened me. I dreamt three times of you. What sign is that?’

  ‘A sign you were drinking too much.’

  ‘ ’Tis not. I know what sign it is.’

  He drew his chair up beside her own, and put his arm about her. Then he drew her face round to his and kissed her. At that moment she could feel very clearly the change in him. His hand crept about her neck and down her breast, releasing the warm smell of her body.

  ‘That’s enough love-making,’ she said. She rose quickly and shook off his arm. A strange happy smile like a newly open flower lingered where he had kissed her. ‘I’m tired. Your bed is made in there.’

  ‘My bed?’

  She nodded.

  ‘You’re only joking me. You are, you divil, you’re only joking.’

  His arms out, he followed her, laughing like a lad of sixteen. He caught at her, but she forced him off again. His face altered suddenly, became sullen and spiteful.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘ ’Tis a change for you.’

  ‘ ’Tis.’

  ‘And for why?’

  ‘For no why. Isn’t it enough for you to know it?’

  ‘Is it because I wint away?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘I don’t know whether ’tis or no.’

  ‘And didn’t I come back as I said I would?’

  ‘You did. When it suited you.’

  ‘The divil is in ye all,’ he said crossly.

  Later he returned to the attack; he was quieter and more persuasive; there was more of the man in him, but she seemed armed at every point. He experienced an acute sense of frustration. He had felt growing in him this new, lusty manhood, and returned with the intention of dominating her, only to find she too had grown, and still outstripped him. He lay awake for a long time, thinking it out, but when he rose next morning the barrier between them seemed to have disappeared. As ever she was dutiful, unobtrusive; by day at any rate she was all he would have her to be. Even when he kissed her she responded; of his hold on her he had no doubt, but he seemed incapable of taking advantage of it.

  That night when he went to bed he began to think again of it, and rage grew in him until it banished all hope of sleep. He rose and went into her room.

  ‘How long is this going to last?’ he asked thickly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘This. How long more are you going to keep me out?’

  ‘Maybe always,’ she said softly, as if conjuring up the prospect.

  ‘Always?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Always? And what in hell do you mean by it? You lure me into it, and then throw me away like an old boot.’

  ‘Did I lure you into it?’

  ‘You did. Oh, you fooled me right enough at the time, but I’ve been thinking about it since. ’Twas no chance brought you on the road the first day I passed.’

  ‘Maybe I did,’ she admitted. She was stirred again by the quickness of his growth. ‘If I did you had nothing to complain of.’

  ‘Haven’t I now?’

  ‘Now is different.’

  ‘Why? Because I wint away?’

  ‘Because you didn’t think me good enough for you.’

  ‘That’s a lie. You said that before, and you know ’tis a lie.’

  ‘Then show it.’

  He sat on the bed and put his face close to hers.

  ‘You mean, to marry you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You know I can’t.’

  ‘What hinders you?’

  ‘For a start, I have no money. Neither have you.’

  ‘There’s money enough.’

  ‘Where would it come from?’

  ‘Never you mind where ’twould come from. ’Tis there.’

  He looked at her hard.

  ‘You planned it well,’ he said at last. ‘They said he was a miser.… Oh, Christ, I can’t marry you!’

  ‘The divil send you better meat than mutton,’ she retorted coarsely.

  He sat on the edge of the bed, his big hand caressing her cheek and bare shoulder.

  ‘Why don’t you tell the truth?’ she asked. ‘You have no respect for me.’

  ‘Why do you keep on saying that?’

  ‘Because ’tis true.’ In a different voice she added: ‘Nor I hadn’t for myself till you went away. Take me now or leave me.… Stop that, you fool!’

  ‘Listen to me —’

  ‘Stop that then! I’m tame now, but I’m not tame enough for that.’

  Even in the darkness she could feel that she had awakened his old dread of her; she put her arms about his head, drew him down to her, and whispered in his ear.

  ‘Now do you understand?’ she said.

  A few days later he got out the cart and harnessed the pony. They drove into the town three miles away. As they passed through the village people came to their doors to look after them. They left the cart a little outside the town, and, following country practice, separated to meet again on the priest’s doorstep. The priest was at home, and he listened incredulously to the man’s story.

  ‘You know I’ll have to write to your parish priest first,’ he said severely.

  ‘I know,’ said the man. ‘You’ll find and see he have nothing against me.’

  The priest was shaken.

  ‘And this woman has told you everything?’

  ‘She told me nothing. But I know.’

  ‘About her uncle?’

  ‘About her uncle,’ repeated the man.

  ‘And you’re satisfied to marry her, knowing that?’

  ‘I’m satisfied.’

  ‘It’s all very strange,’ said the priest wearily. ‘You know,’ he added to the woman, ‘Almighty God has been very merciful to you. I hope you are conscious of all He in His infinite mercy has done for you, who deserve it so little.’

  ‘I am. From this out I’ll go to Mass regularly.’

  ‘I hope,’ he repeated emphatically, ‘you are fully conscious of it. If I thought there was any lightness in you, if I thought for an instant that you wouldn’t make a good wife to this man, my conscience wouldn’t allow me to marry you. Do you understand that?’

  ‘Never fear,’ she said, without lifting her eyes. ‘I’ll make him a good wife. And he knows it.’

  The man nodded. ‘I know it,’ he said.

  The priest was impressed by the solemn way in which she spoke. She was aware that the strength which had upheld her till now was passing from her to the you
ng man at her side; the future would be his.

  From the priest’s they went to the doctor’s. He saw her slip on a ring before they entered. He sat in the room while the doctor examined her. When she had dressed again her eyes were shining. The strength was passing from her, and she was not sorry to see it pass. She laid a sovereign on the table.

  ‘Oho,’ exclaimed the doctor, ‘how did you come by this?’ The man started and the woman smiled.

  ‘I earned it hard,’ she answered.

  The doctor took the coin to the window and examined it.

  ‘By Jove,’ he said, ‘it’s not often I see one of these.’

  ‘Maybe you’ll see more of them,’ she said with a gay laugh. He looked at her from under his eyes and laughed too; her brightness had a strange other-world attraction.

  ‘Maybe I will,’ he replied. ‘In a few months’ time, eh? Sorry I can’t give you change in your own coin. Ah, well! Good luck, anyway. And call me in as often as you please.’

  UPROOTED

  SPRING HAD only come and already he was tired to death; tired of the city, tired of his job. He had come up from the country intending to do wonders, but he was as far as ever from that. He would be lucky if he could carry on, be at school each morning at half past nine and satisfy his half-witted principal.

  He lodged in a small red-brick house in Rathmines that was kept by a middle-aged brother and sister who had been left a bit of money and thought they would end their days enjoyably in a city. They did not enjoy themselves, regretted their little farm in Kerry, and were glad of Ned Keating because he could talk to them about all the things they remembered and loved.

  Keating was a slow, cumbrous young man with dark eyes and a dark cow’s-lick that kept tumbling into them. He had a slight stammer and ran his hand through his long limp hair from pure nervousness. He had always been dreamy and serious. Sometimes on market days you saw him standing for an hour in Nolan’s shop, turning the pages of a schoolbook. When he could not afford it he put it back with a sigh and went off to find his father in a pub, just raising his eyes to smile at Jack Nolan. After his elder brother Tom had gone for the church he and his father had constant rows. Nothing would do Ned now but to be a teacher. Hadn’t he all he wanted now? his father asked. Hadn’t he the place to himself? What did he want going teaching? But Ned was stubborn. With an obstinate, almost despairing determination he had fought his way through the training college into a city job. The city was what he had always wanted. And now the city had failed him. In the evenings you could still see him poking round the second-hand bookshops on the quays, but his eyes were already beginning to lose their eagerness.

  It had all seemed so clear. But then he had not counted on his own temper. He was popular because of his gentleness, but how many concessions that involved! He was hesitating, good-natured, slow to see guile, slow to contradict. He felt he was constantly underestimating his own powers. He even felt he lacked spontaneity. He did not drink, smoked little, and saw dangers and losses everywhere. He blamed himself for avarice and cowardice. The story he liked best was about the country boy and the letter box. ‘Indeed, what a fool you think I am! Put me letther in a pump!’

  He was in no danger of putting his letter in a pump or anywhere else for the matter of that. He had only one friend, a nurse in Vincent’s Hospital, a wild, lighthearted, lightheaded girl. He was very fond of her and supposed that some day when he had money enough he would ask her to marry him; but not yet: and at the same time something that was both shyness and caution kept him from committing himself too far. Sometimes he planned excursions besides the usual weekly walk or visit to the pictures but somehow they seldom came to anything.

  He no longer knew why he had come to the city, but it was not for the sake of the bed-sitting room in Rathmines, the oblong of dusty garden outside the window, the trams clanging up and down, the shelf full of second-hand books, or the occasional visit to the pictures. Half humorously, half despairingly, he would sometimes clutch his head in his hands and admit to himself that he had no notion of what he wanted. He would have liked to leave it all and go to Glasgow or New York as a labourer, not because he was romantic, but because he felt that only when he had to work with his hands for a living and was no longer sure of his bed would he find out what all his ideals and emotions meant and where he could fit them into the scheme of his life.

  But no sooner did he set out for school next morning, striding slowly along the edge of the canal, watching the trees become green again and the tall claret-coloured houses painted on the quiet surface of the water, than all his fancies took flight. Put his letter in a pump indeed! He would continue to be submissive and draw his salary and wonder how much he could save and when he would be able to buy a little house to bring his girl into; a nice thing to think of on a spring morning: a house of his own and a wife in the bed beside him. And his nature would continue to contract about him, every ideal, every generous impulse another mesh to draw his head down tighter to his knees till in ten years’ time it would tie him hand and foot.

  *

  Tom, who was a curate in Wicklow, wrote and suggested that they might go home together for the long weekend, and on Saturday morning they set out in Tom’s old Ford. It was Easter weather, pearly and cold. They stopped at several pubs on the way and Tom ordered whiskeys. Ned was feeling expansive and joined him. He had never quite grown used to his brother, partly because of old days when he felt that Tom was getting the education he should have got, partly because his ordination seemed to have shut him off from the rest of the family, and now it was as though he were trying to surmount it by his boisterous manner and affected bonhomie. He was like a man shouting to his comrades across a great distance. He was different from Ned; lighter in colour of hair and skin; fat-headed, fresh-complexioned, deep-voiced, and autocratic; an irascible, humorous, friendly man who was well-liked by those he worked for. Ned, who was shy and all tied up within himself, envied him his way with men in garages and barmaids in hotels.

  It was nightfall when they reached home. Their father was in his shirtsleeves at the gate waiting to greet them, and immediately their mother rushed out as well. The lamp was standing in the window and threw its light as far as the whitewashed gateposts. Little Brigid, the girl from up the hill who helped their mother now she was growing old, stood in the doorway in half-silhouette. When her eyes caught theirs she bent her head in confusion.

  Nothing was changed in the tall, bare, whitewashed kitchen. The harness hung in the same place on the wall, the rosary on the same nail in the fireplace, by the stool where their mother usually sat; table under the window, churn against the back door, stair without banisters mounting straight to the attic door that yawned in the wall – all seemed as unchanging as the sea outside. Their mother sat on the stool, her hands on her knees, a coloured shawl tied tightly about her head, like a gipsy woman with her battered yellow face and loud voice. Their father, fresh-complexioned like Tom, stocky and broken-bottomed, gazed out the front door, leaning with one hand on the dresser in the pose of an orator while Brigid wet the tea.

  ‘I said ye’d be late,’ their father proclaimed triumphantly, twisting his moustache. ‘Didn’t I, woman? Didn’t I say they’d be late?’

  ‘He did, he did,’ their mother assured them. ‘ ’Tis true for him.’

  ‘Ah, I knew ye’d be making halts. But damn it, if I wasn’t put astray by Thade Lahy’s car going east!’

  ‘And was that Thade Lahy’s car?’ their mother asked in a shocked tone.

  ‘I told ye ’twas Thade Lahy’s,’ piped Brigid, plopping about in her long frieze gown and bare feet.

  ‘Sure I should know it, woman,’ old Tomas said with chagrin. ‘He must have gone into town without us noticing him.’

  ‘Oye, and how did he do that?’ asked their mother.

  ‘Leave me alone now,’ Tomas said despairingly. ‘I couldn’t tell you, I could not tell you.’

  ‘My goodness, I was sure that was the Master’s car,�
� their mother said wonderingly, pulling distractedly at the tassels of her shawl.

  ‘I’d know the rattle of Thade Lahy’s car anywhere,’ little Brigid said very proudly and quite unregarded.

  It seemed to Ned that he was interrupting a conversation that had been going on since his last visit, and that the road outside and the sea beyond it, and every living thing that passed before them, formed a pantomime that was watched endlessly and passionately from the darkness of the little cottage.

  ‘Wisha, I never asked if ye’d like a drop of something,’ their father said with sudden vexation.

  ‘Is it whiskey?’ boomed Tom.

  ‘Why? Would you sooner whiskey?’

  ‘Can’t you pour it out first and ask us after?’ growled Tom.

  ‘The whiskey, is it?’

  ‘ ’Tis not. I didn’t come all the ways to this place for what I can get better at home. You’d better have a bottle ready for me to take back.’

  ‘Coleen will have it. Damn it, wasn’t it only last night I said to Coleen that you’d likely want a bottle? Some way it struck me you would. Oh, he’ll have it, he’ll have it.’

  ‘Didn’t they catch that string of misery yet?’ asked Tom with the cup to his lips.

  ‘Ah, man alive, you’d want to be a greyhound to catch him. God Almighty, hadn’t they fifty police after him last November, scouring the mountains from one end to the other and all they caught was a glimpse of the white of his ass. Ah, but the priest preached a terrible sermon against him – by name, Tom, by name!’

  ‘Is old Murphy blowing about it still?’ growled Tom.

  ‘Oh, let me alone now!’ Tomas threw his hands to heaven and strode to and fro in his excitement, his bucket-bottom wagging. Ned knew to his sorrow that his father could be prudent, silent, and calculating; he knew only too well the cock of the head, the narrowing of the eyes, but, like a child, the old man loved innocent excitement and revelled in scenes of the wildest passion, all about nothing. Like an old actor he turned everything to drama. ‘The like of it for abuse was never heard, never heard, never heard! How Coleen could ever raise his head again after it! And where the man got the words from! Tom, my treasure, my son, you’ll never have the like.’