The Best of Frank O'Connor

by Frank O'Connor

  ‘So here was I, pulling and hauling, coaxing him to stop at home, and hiding whatever little thing was to be done till evening the way his hands would not be idle. But he had no heart in the work, only listening, always listening, or climbing the cnuceen to see would he catch a glimpse of her coming or going. And, oh, Mary, the heavy sigh he’d give when his bit of supper was over and I bolting the house for the night, and he with the long hours of darkness forninst him – my heart was broken thinking of it. It was the madness, you see. It was on him. He could hardly sleep or eat, and at night I would hear him, turning and groaning as loud as the sea on the rocks.

  ‘It was then when the sleep was a fever to him that he took to walking in the night. I remember well the first night I heard him lift the latch. I put on my few things and went out after him. It was standing here I heard his feet on the stile. I went back and latched the door and hurried after him. What else could I do, and this place terrible after the fall of night with rocks and hills and water and streams, and he, poor soul, blinded with the dint of sleep. He travelled the road a piece, and then took to the hills, and I followed him with my legs all torn with briars and furze. It was over beyond by the new house that he gave up. He turned to me then the way a little child that is running away turns and clings to your knees; he turned to me and said: “Mother, we’ll go home now. It was the bad day for you ever you brought me into the world.” And as the day was breaking I got him back to bed and covered him up to sleep.

  ‘I was hoping that in time he’d wear himself out, but it was worse he was getting. I was a strong woman then, a mayen-strong woman. I could cart a load of seaweed or dig a field with any man, but the night-walking broke me. I knelt one night before the Blessed Virgin and prayed whatever was to happen, it would happen while the light of life was in me, the way I would not be leaving him lonesome like that in a wild place.

  ‘And it happened the way I prayed. Blessed be God, he woke that night or the next night on me and he roaring. I went in to him but I couldn’t hold him. He had the strength of five men. So I went out and locked the door behind me. It was down the hill I faced in the starlight to the little house above the cove. The Donoghues came with me: I will not belie them; they were fine powerful men and good neighbours. The father and the two sons came with me and brought the rope from the boats. It was a hard struggle they had of it and a long time before they got him on the floor, and a longer time before they got the ropes on him. And when they had him tied they put him back into bed for me, and I covered him up, nice and decent, and put a hot stone to his feet to take the chill of the cold floor off him.

  ‘Sean Donoghue spent the night sitting beside the fire with me, and in the morning he sent one of the boys off for the doctor. Then Denis called me in his own voice and I went into him. “Mother,” says Denis, “will you leave me this way against the time they come for me?” I hadn’t the heart. God knows I hadn’t. “Don’t do it, Peg,” says Sean. “If ’twas a hard job trussing him before, it will be harder the next time, and I won’t answer for it.”

  ‘ “You’re a kind neighbour, Sean,” says I, “and I would never make little of you, but he is the only son I ever reared and I’d sooner he’d kill me now than shame him at the last.”

  ‘So I loosened the ropes on him and he lay there very quiet all day without breaking his fast. Coming on to evening he asked me for the sup of tea and he drank it, and soon after the doctor and another man came in the car. They said a few words to Denis but he made them no answer and the doctor gave me the bit of writing. “It will be tomorrow before they come for him,” says he, “and ’tisn’t right for you to be alone in the house with the man.” But I said I would stop with him and Sean Donoghue said the same.

  ‘When darkness came on there was a little bit of a wind blew up from the sea and Denis began to rave to himself, and it was her name he was calling all the time. “Winnie,” that was her name, and it was the first time I heard it spoken. “Who is that he is calling?” says Sean. “It is the schoolmistress,” says I, “for though I do not recognize the name, I know ’tis no one else he’d be asking for.” “That is a bad sign,” says Sean. “He’ll get worse as the night goes on and the wind rises. ’Twould be better for me go down and get the boys to put the ropes on him again while he’s quiet.” And it was then something struck me, and I said: “Maybe if she came to him herself for a minute he would be quiet after.” “We can try it anyway,” says Sean, “and if the girl has a kind heart she will come.”

  ‘It was Sean that went up for her. I would not have the courage to ask her. Her little house is there on the edge of the hill; you can see it as you go back the road with the bit of garden before it the new teacher left grow wild. And it was a true word Sean said for ’twas worse Denis was getting, shouting out against the wind for us to get Winnie for him. Sean was a long time away or maybe I felt it long, and I thought it might be the way she was afeared to come. There are many like that, small blame to them. Then I heard her step that I knew so well on the boreen beside the house and I ran to the door, meaning to say I was sorry for the trouble we were giving her, but when I opened the door Denis called out her name in a loud voice, and the crying fit came on me, thinking how lighthearted we used to be together.

  ‘I couldn’t help it, and she pushed in apast me into the bedroom with her face as white as that wall. The candle was lighting on the dresser. He turned to her roaring with the mad look in his eyes, and then went quiet all of a sudden, seeing her like that overright him with her hair all tumbled in the wind. I was coming behind her. I heard it. He put up his two poor hands and the red mark of the ropes on his wrists and whispered to her: “Winnie, asthore, isn’t it the long time you were away from me?”

  ‘ “It is, Denis, it is indeed,” says she, “but you know I couldn’t help it.”

  ‘ “Don’t leave me any more now, Winnie,” says he, and then he said no more, only the two eyes lighting out on her as she sat by the bed. And Sean Donoghue brought in the little stooleen for me, and there we were, the three of us, talking, and Den is paying us no attention only staring at her.

  ‘ “Winnie,” says he, “lie down here beside me.”

  ‘ “Oye,” says Sean, humouring him, “don’t you know the poor girl is played out after her day’s work? She must go home to bed.”

  ‘ “No, no, no,” says Denis and the terrible mad light in his eyes. “There is a high wind blowing and ’tis no night for one like her to be out. Leave her sleep here beside me. Leave her creep in under the clothes to me the way I’ll keep her warm.”

  ‘ “Oh, oh, oh, oh,” says I, “indeed and indeed, Miss Regan, ’tis I’m sorry for bringing you here. ‘Tisn’t my son is talking at all but the madness in him. I’ll go now,” says I, “and bring Sean’s boys to put the ropes on him again.”

  ‘ “No, Mrs Sullivan,” says she in a quiet voice. “Don’t do that at all. I’ll stop here with him and he’ll go fast asleep. Won’t you, Denis?”

  ‘ “I will, I will,” says he, “but come under the clothes to me. There does a terrible draught blow under that door.”

  ‘ “I will indeed, Denis,” says she, “if you’ll promise me to go to sleep.”

  ‘ “Oye whisht, girl,” says I. “ ’Tis you that’s mad. While you’re here you’re in my charge, and how would I answer to your father if you stopped in here by yourself?”

  ‘ “Never mind about me, Mrs Sullivan,” she said. “I’m not a bit in dread of Denis. I promise you there will no harm come to me. You and Mr Donoghue can sit outside in the kitchen and I’ll be all right here.”

  ‘She had a worried look but there was something about her there was no mistaking. I wouldn’t take it on myself to cross the girl. We went out to the kitchen, Sean and myself, and we heard every whisper that passed between them. She got into the bed beside him: I heard her. He was whispering into her ear the sort of foolish things boys do be saying at that age, and then we heard no more only the pair of them breathing. I went to the room
door and looked in. He was lying with his arm about her and his head on her bosom, sleeping like a child, sleeping like he slept in his good days with no worry at all on his poor face. She did not look at me and I did not speak to her. My heart was too full. God help us, it was an old song of my father’s that was going through my head: “Lonely Rock is the one wife my children will know”.

  ‘Later on, the candle went out and I did not light another. I wasn’t a bit afraid for her then. The storm blew up and he slept through it all, breathing nice and even. When it was light I made a cup of tea for her and beckoned her from the room door. She loosened his hold and slipped out of bed. Then he stirred and opened his eyes.

  ‘ “Winnie,” says he, “where are you going?”

  ‘ “I’m going to work, Denis,” says she. “Don’t you know I must be at school early?”

  ‘ “But you’ll come back to me tonight, Winnie?” says he.

  ‘ “I will, Denis,” says she. “I’ll come back, never fear.”

  ‘And he turned on his side and went fast asleep again.

  ‘When she walked into the kitchen I went on my two knees before her and kissed her hands. I did so. There would no words come to me, and we sat there, the three of us, over our tea, and I declare for the time being I felt ’twas worth it all, all the troubles of his birth and rearing and all the lonesome years ahead.

  ‘It was a great ease to us. Poor Denis never stirred, and when the police came he went along with them without commotion or handcuffs or anything that would shame him, and all the words he said to me was: “Mother, tell Winnie I’ll be expecting her.”

  ‘And isn’t it a strange and wonderful thing? From that day to the day she left us there did no one speak a bad word about what she did, and the people couldn’t do enough for her. Isn’t it a strange thing and the world as wicked as it is, that no one would say the bad word about her?’

  Darkness had fallen over the Atlantic, blank grey to its farthest reaches.

  A BACHELOR’S STORY

  EVERY OLD bachelor has a love story in him if only you can get at it. This is usually not very easy because a bachelor is a man who does not lightly trust his neighbour, and by the time you can identify him as what he is, the cause of it all has been elevated into a morality, almost a divinity, something the old bachelor himself is afraid to look at for fear it might turn out to be stuffed. And woe betide you if he does confide in you, and you, by word or look, suggest that you do think it is stuffed, for that is how my own friendship with Archie Boland ended.

  Archie was a senior Civil Servant, a big man with a broad red face and hot blue eyes and a crust of worldliness and bad temper overlaying a nature that had a lot of sweetness and fun in it. He was a man who affected to believe the worst of everyone, but he saw that I appreciated his true character, and suppressed his bad temper most of the time, except when I trespassed on his taboos, religious and political. For years the two of us walked home together. We both loved walking, and we both liked to drop in at a certain pub by the canal bridge where they kept good draught stout. Whenever we encountered some woman we knew, Archie was very polite and even effusive in an old-fashioned way, raising his hat with a great sweeping gesture and bowing low over the hand he held as if he were about to kiss it, which I swear he would have done on the least encouragement. But afterwards he would look at me under his eyebrows with a knowing smile and tell me things about their home life which the ladies would have been very distressed to hear, and this, in turn, would give place to a sly look that implied that I was drawing my own conclusions from what he said, which I wasn’t, not usually.

  ‘I know what you think, Delaney,’ he said one evening, carefully putting down the two pints and lowering himself heavily into his seat. ‘You think I’m a bad case of sour grapes.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking anything at all,’ I said.

  ‘Well, maybe you mightn’t be too far wrong at that,’ he conceded, more to his own view of me than to anything else. ‘But it’s not only that, Delaney. There are other things involved. You see, when I was your age I had an experience that upset me a lot. It upset me so much that I felt I could never go through the same sort of thing again. Maybe I was too idealistic.’

  I never heard a bachelor yet who didn’t take a modest pride in his own idealism. And there in the far corner of that pub by the canal bank on a rainy autumn evening, Archie took the plunge and told me the story of the experience that had turned him against women, and I put my foot in it and turned him against me as well. Ah, well, I was younger then!

  You see, in his earlier days Archie had been a great cyclist. Twice he had cycled round Ireland, and had made any amount of long trips to see various historic spots, battlefields, castles and cathedrals. He was no scholar, but he liked to know what he was talking about and had no objection to showing other people that they didn’t. ‘I suppose you know that place you were talking about, James?’ he would purr when someone in the office stuck his neck out. ‘Because if you don’t, I do.’ No wonder he wasn’t too popular with the staff.

  One evening Archie arrived in a remote Connemara village where four women teachers were staying, studying Irish, and after supper he got to chatting with them, and they all went for a walk along the strand. One was a young woman called Madge Hale, a slight girl with blue-grey eyes, a long clear-skinned face, and a rather breathless manner, and Archie did not take long to see that she was altogether more intelligent than the others, and that whenever he said something interesting her whole face lit up like a child’s.

  The teachers were going on a trip to the Aran Islands next day, and Archie offered to join them. They visited the tiny oratories, and, as none of the teachers knew anything about these, Archie in his well-informed way described the origin of the island monasteries and the life of the hermit monks in the early mediaeval period. Madge was fascinated and kept asking questions about what the churches had looked like, and Archie, flattered into doing the dog, suggested that she should accompany him on a bicycle trip the following day, and see some of the later monasteries. She agreed at once enthusiastically. The other women laughed, and Madge laughed, too, though it was clear that she didn’t really know what they were laughing about.

  Now, this was one sure way to Archie’s heart. He disliked women because they were always going to parties or the pictures, painting their faces, and taking aspirin in cartloads. There was altogether too much nonsense about them for a man of his grave taste, but at last he had met a girl who seemed absolutely devoid of nonsense and was serious through and through.

  Their trip next day was a great success, and he was able to point out to her the development of the monastery church through the mediaeval abbey to the preaching church. That evening when they returned, he suggested, half in jest, that she should borrow the bicycle and come back to Dublin with him. This time she hesitated, but it was only for a few moments as she considered the practical end of it, and then her face lit up in the same eager way, and she said in her piping voice: ‘If you think I won’t be in your way, Archie.’

  Now, she was in Archie’s way, and very much in his way, for he was a man of old-fashioned ideas, who had never in his life allowed a woman he was accompanying to pay for as much as a cup of tea for herself, who felt that to have to excuse himself on the road was little short of obscene, and who endured the agonies of the damned when he had to go to a country hotel with a pretty girl at the end of the day. When he went to the reception desk he felt sure that everyone believed unmentionable things about him and he had an overwhelming compulsion to lecture them on the subject of their evil imaginations. But for this, too, he admired her – by this time any other girl would have been wondering what her parents and friends would say if they knew she was spending the night in a country hotel with a man, but the very idea of scandal never seemed to enter Madge’s head. And it was not, as he shrewdly divined, that she was either fast or flighty. It was merely that it had never occurred to her that anything she and Archie might do could invol
ve any culpability.

  That settled Archie’s business. He knew she was the only woman in the world for him, though to tell her this when she was more or less at the mercy of his solicitations was something that did not even cross his mind. He had a sort of old-fashioned chivalry that set him above the commoner temptations. They cycled south through Clare to Limerick, and stood on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic; the weather held fine, and they drifted through the flat apple country to Cashel and drank beer and lemonade in country pubs, and finally pushed over the hills to Kilkenny, where they spent their last evening wandering in the dusk under the ruins of mediaeval abbeys and inns, studying effigies and blazons; and never once did Archie as much as hold her hand or speak to her of love. He scowled as he told me this, as though I might mock him from the depths of my own small experience, but I had no inclination to do so, for I knew the enchantment of the senses that people of chaste and lonely character feel in one another’s company and that haunts the memory more than all the passionate embraces of lovers.