The Second Penguin Book of English Short Stories

by Christopher Dolley (ed)

  ‘They might knife you,’ was Mr Graham’s contribution.

  The Greeks said nothing; but whenever Mr Lucas looked their way, they beckoned him towards the Khan. The children would even have drawn him by the coat, and the old woman on the balcony stopped her almost completed spinning, and fixed him with mysterious appealing eyes. As he fought, the issue assumed gigantic proportions, and he believed that he was not merely stopping because he had regained youth or seen beauty or found happiness, but because in that place and with those people a supreme event was awaiting him which would transfigure the face of the world. The moment was so tremendous that he abandoned words and arguments as useless, and rested on the strength of his mighty unrevealed allies: silent men, murmuring water, and whispering trees. For the whole place called with one voice, articulate to him, and his garrulous opponents became every minute more meaningless and absurd. Soon they would be tired and go chattering away into the sun, leaving him to the cool grove and the moonlight and the destiny he foresaw.

  Mrs Forman and the dragoman had indeed already started, amid the piercing screams of the little pig, and the struggle might have gone on indefinitely if Ethel had not called in Mr Graham.

  ‘Can you help me?’ she whispered. ‘He is absolutely unmanageable.’

  ‘I’m no good at arguing – but if I could help you in any other way – ’ and he looked down complacently at his well-made figure.

  Ethel hesitated. Then she said: ‘Help me in any way you can. After all, it is for his own good that we do it.’

  ‘Then have his mule led up behind him.’

  So when Mr Lucas thought he had gained the day, he suddenly felt himself lifted off the ground, and sat sideways on the saddle, and at the same time the mule started off at a trot. He said nothing, for he had nothing to say, and even his face showed little emotion as he felt the shade pass and heard the sound of the water cease. Mr Graham was running at his side, hat in hand, apologizing.

  ‘I know I had no business to do it, and I do beg your pardon awfully. But I do hope that some day you too will feel that I was – damn!’

  A stone had caught him in the middle of the back. It was thrown by the little boy, who was pursuing them along the mule track. He was followed by his sister, also throwing stones.

  Ethel screamed to the dragoman, who was some way ahead with Mrs Forman, but before he could rejoin them, another adversary appeared. It was the young Greek, who had cut them off in front, and now dashed down at Mr Lucas’ bridle. Fortunately Graham was an expert boxer, and it did not take him a moment to beat down the youth’s feeble defence, and to send him sprawling with a bleeding mouth into the asphodel. By this time the dragoman had arrived, the children, alarmed at the fate of their brother, had desisted, and the rescue party, if such it is to be considered, retired in disorder to the trees.

  ‘Little devils!’ said Graham, laughing with triumph. ‘That’s the modern Greek all over. Your father meant money if he stopped, and they consider we were taking it out of their pocket.’

  ‘Oh, they are terrible – simple savages! I don’t know how I shall ever thank you. You’ve saved my father.’

  ‘I only hope you didn’t think me brutal.’

  ‘No,’ replied Ethel with a little sigh. ‘I admire strength.’

  Meanwhile the cavalcade reformed, and Mr Lucas, who, as Mrs Forman said, bore his disappointment wonderfully well, was put comfortably on to his mule. They hurried up the opposite hillside, fearful of another attack, and it was not until they had left the eventful place far behind that Ethel found an opportunity to speak to her father and ask his pardon for the way she had treated him.

  ‘You seemed so different, dear father, and you quite frightened me. Now I feel that you are your old self again.’

  He did not answer, and she concluded that he was not unnaturally offended at her behaviour.

  By one of those curious tricks of mountain scenery, the place they had left an hour before suddenly reappeared far below them. The Khan was hidden under the green dome, but in the open there still stood three figures, and through the pure air rose up a faint cry of defiance or farewell.

  Mr Lucas stopped irresolutely, and let the reins fall from his hand.

  ‘Come, father dear,’ said Ethel gently.

  He obeyed, and in another moment a spur of the hill hid the dangerous scene for ever.

  2

  It was breakfast time, but the gas was alight, owing to the fog. Mr Lucas was in the middle of an account of a bad night he had spent. Ethel, who was to be married in a few weeks, had her arms on the table, listening.

  ‘First the door bell rang, then you came back from the theatre. Then the dog started, and after the dog the cat. And at three in the morning a young hooligan passed by singing. Oh yes: then there was the water gurgling in the pipe above my head.’

  ‘I think that was only the bath water running away,’ said Ethel, looking rather worn.

  ‘Well, there’s nothing I dislike more than running water. It’s perfectly impossible to sleep in the house. I shall give it up. I shall give notice next quarter. I shall tell the landlord plainly, “The reason I am giving up the house is this: it is perfectly impossible to sleep in it.” If he says – says – well, what has he got to say?’

  ‘Some more toast, father?’

  ‘Thank you, my dear.’ He took it, and there was an interval of peace.

  But he soon recommenced. ‘I’m not going to submit to the practising next door as tamely as they think. I wrote and told them so – didn’t I?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ethel, who had taken care that the letter should not reach. ‘I have seen the governess, and she has promised to arrange it differently. And Aunt Julia hates noise. It will be sure to be all right.’

  Her aunt, being the only unattached member of the family, was coming to keep house for her father when she left him. The reference was not a happy one, and Mr Lucas commenced a series of half articulate sighs, which was only stopped by the arrival of the post.

  ‘Oh, what a parcel!’ cried Ethel. ‘For me! What can it be! Greek stamps. This is most exciting!’

  It proved to be some asphodel bulbs, sent by Mrs Forman from Athens for planting in the conservatory.

  ‘Doesn’t it bring it all back! You remember the asphodels, father. And all wrapped up in Greek newspapers. I wonder if I can read them still. I used to be able to, you know.’

  She rattled on, hoping to conceal the laughter of the children next door – a favourite source of querulousness at breakfast time.

  ‘Listen to me! “A rural disaster.” Oh, I’ve hit on something sad. But never mind. “Last Tuesday at Plataniste, in the province of Messenia, a shocking tragedy occurred. A large tree” – aren’t I getting on well? – “blew down in the night and” – wait a minute – oh dear! “crushed to death the five occupants of the little Khan there, who had apparently been sitting in the balcony. The bodies of Maria Rhomaides, the aged proprietress, and of her daughter, aged forty-six, were easily recognizable, whereas that of her grandson” – oh, the rest is really too horrid; I wish I had never tried it, and what’s more I feel to have heard the name Plataniste before. We didn’t stop there, did we, in the spring?’

  ‘We had lunch,’ said Mr Lucas, with a faint expression of trouble on his vacant face. ‘Perhaps it was where the dragoman bought the pig.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Ethel in a nervous voice. ‘Where the dragoman bought the little pig. How terrible!’

  ‘Very terrible!’ said her father, whose attention was wandering to the noisy children next door. Ethel suddenly started to her feet with genuine interest.

  ‘Good gracious!’ she exclaimed. ‘This is an old paper. It happened not lately but in April – the night of Tuesday the eighteenth – and we – we must have been there in the afternoon.’

  ‘So we were,’ said Mr Lucas. She put her hand to her heart, scarcely able to speak.

 
‘Father, dear father, I must say it: you wanted to stop there. All those people, those poor half savage people, tried to keep you, and they’re dead. The whole place, it says, is in ruins, and even the stream has changed its course. Father dear, if it had not been for me, and if Arthur had not helped me, you must have been killed.’

  Mr Lucas waved his hand irritably. ‘It is not a bit of good speaking to the governess, I shall write to the landlord and say, “The reason I am giving up the house is this: the dog barks, the children next door are intolerable, and I cannot stand the noise of running water.” ’

  Ethel did not check his babbling. She was aghast at the narrowness of the escape, and for a long time kept silence. At last she said: ‘Such a marvellous deliverance does make one believe in Providence.’

  Mr Lucas, who was still composing his letter to the landlord, did not reply.

  James Joyce

  IVY DAY IN THE COMMITTEE ROOM

  OLD JACK raked the cinders together with a piece of cardboard and spread them judiciously over the whitening dome of coals. When the dome was thinly covered his face lapsed into darkness but, as he set himself to fan the fire again, his crouching shadow ascended the opposite wall and his face slowly re-emerged into light. It was an old man’s face, very bony and hairy. The moist blue eyes blinked at the fire and the moist mouth fell open at times, munching once or twice mechanically when it closed. When the cinders had caught he laid the piece of cardboard against the wall, sighed and said:

  ‘That’s better now, Mr O’Connor.’

  Mr O’Connor, a grey-haired young man, whose face was disfigured by many blotches and pimples, had just brought the tobacco for a cigarette into a shapely cylinder, but when spoken to he undid his handiwork again meditatively. Then he began to roll the tobacco again meditatively and after a moment’s thought decided to lick the paper.

  ‘Did Mr Tierney say when he’d be back?’ he asked in a husky falsetto.

  ‘He didn’t say.’

  Mr O’Connor put his cigarette into his mouth and began to search his pockets. He took out a pack of thin pasteboard cards.

  ‘I’ll get you a match,’ said the old man.

  ‘Never mind, this’ll do,’ said Mr O’Connor.

  He selected one of the cards and read what was printed on it:

  MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS

  ROYAL EXCHANGE WARD

  Mr Richard J. Tierney, P. L. G., respectfully solicits the favour of your vote and influence at the coming election in the Royal Exchange Ward.

  Mr O’Connor had been engaged by Tierney’s agent to canvass one part of the ward but, as the weather was inclement and his boots let in the wet, he spent a great part of the day sitting by the fire in the Committee Room in Wicklow Street with Jack, the old caretaker. They had been sitting thus since the short day had grown dark. It was the sixth of October, dismal and cold out of doors.

  Mr O’Connor tore a strip off the card and, lighting it, lit his cigarette. As he did so the flame lit up a leaf of dark glossy ivy in the lapel of his coat. The old man watched him attentively and then, taking up the piece of cardboard again, began to fan the fire slowly while his companion smoked.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ he said, continuing, ‘it’s hard to know what way to bring up children. Now who’d think he’d turn out like that! I sent him to the Christian Brothers and I done what I could for him, and there he goes boozing about. I tried to make him somewhat decent.’

  He replaced the cardboard wearily.

  ‘Only I’m an old man now I’d change his tune for him. I’d take the stick to his back and beat him while I could stand over him – as I done many a time before. The mother you know, she cocks him up with this and that …’

  ‘That’s what ruins children,’ said Mr O’Connor.

  ‘To be sure it is,’ said the old man. ‘And little thanks you get for it, only impudence. He takes th’upper hand of me whenever he sees I’ve a sup taken. What’s the world coming to when sons speaks that way to their fathers?’

  ‘What age is he?’ said Mr O’Connor.

  ‘Nineteen,’ said the old man.

  ‘Why don’t you put him to something?’

  ‘Sure, amn’t I never done at the drunken bowsy ever since he left school? “I won’t keep you,” I says. “You must get a job for yourself.” But, sure it’s worse whenever he gets a job; he drinks it all.’

  Mr O’Connor shook his head in sympathy, and the old man fell silent, gazing into the fire. Someone opened the door of the room and called out:

  ‘Hello! Is this a Freemasons’ meeting?’

  ‘Who’s that?’ said the old man.

  ‘What are you doing in the dark?’ asked a voice.

  ‘Is that you, Hynes?’ asked Mr O’Connor.

  ‘Yes. What are you doing in the dark?’ said Mr Hynes, advancing into the light of the fire.

  He was a tall, slender young man with a light brown moustache. Imminent little drops of rain hung at the brim of his hat and the collar of his jacket-coat was turned up.

  ‘Well, Mat,’ he said to Mr O’Connor, ‘how goes it?’

  Mr O’Connor shook his head. The old man left the hearth, and after stumbling about the room returned with two candlesticks which he thrust one after the other into the fire and carried to the table. A denuded room came into view and the fire lost all its cheerful colour. The walls of the room were bare except for a copy of an election address. In the middle of the room was a small table on which papers were heaped.

  Mr Hynes leaned against the mantelpiece and asked:

  ‘Has he paid you yet?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Mr O’Connor. ‘I hope to God he’ll not leave us in the lurch tonight.’

  Mr Hynes laughed.

  ‘O, he’ll pay you. Never fear,’ he said.

  ‘I hope he’ll look smart about it if he means business,’ said Mr O’Connor.

  ‘What do you think, Jack?’ said Mr Hynes satirically to the old man.

  The old man returned to his seat by the fire, saying:

  ‘It isn’t but he has it, anyway. Not like the other tinker.’

  ‘What other tinker?’ said Mr Hynes.

  ‘Colgan,’ said the old man scornfully.

  ‘It is because Colgan’s a working-man you say that? What’s the difference between a good honest bricklayer and a publican – eh? Hasn’t the working-man as good a right to be in the Corporation as anyone else – ay, and a better right than those shoneens that are always hat in hand before any fellow with a handle to his name? Isn’t that so, Mat?’ said Mr Hynes, addressing Mr O’Connor.

  ‘I think you’re right,’ said Mr O’Connor.

  ‘One man is a plain honest man with no hunker-sliding about him. He goes in to represent the labour classes. This fellow you’re working for only wants to get some job or other.’

  ‘Of course, the working-classes should be represented,’ said the old man.

  ‘The working-man,’ said Mr Hynes, ‘gets all kicks and no halfpence. But it’s labour produces everything. The working-man is not looking for fat jobs for his sons and nephews and cousins. The working-man is not going to drag the honour of Dublin in the mud to please a German monarch.’

  ‘How’s that?’ said the old man.

  ‘Don’t you know they want to present an address of welcome to Edward Rex if he comes here next year? What do we want kowtowing to a foreign king?’

  ‘Our man won’t vote for the address,’ said Mr O’Connor. ‘He goes in on the Nationalist ticket.’

  ‘Won’t he?’ said Mr Hynes. ‘Wait till you see whether he will or not. I know him. Is it Tricky Dicky Tierney?’

  ‘By God! perhaps you’re right, Joe,’ said Mr O’Connor. ‘Anyway, I wish he’d turn up with the spondulicks.’

  The three men fell silent. The old man began to rake more cinders together. Mr Hynes took off his hat, shook it and then turned down the collar of his coa
t, displaying, as he did so, an ivy leaf in the lapel.

  ‘If this man was alive,’ he said, pointing to the leaf, ‘we’d have no talk of an address of welcome.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Mr O’Connor.

  ‘Musha, God be with them times!’ said the old man. ‘There was some life in it then.’

  The room was silent again. Then a bustling little man with a snuffling nose and very cold ears pushed in the door. He walked over quickly to the fire, rubbing his hands as if he intended to produce a spark from them.

  ‘No money, boys,’ he said.

  ‘Sit down here, Mr Henchy,’ said the old man, offering him his chair.

  ‘O, don’t stir, Jack, don’t stir,’ said Mr Henchy.

  He nodded curtly to Mr Hynes and sat down on the chair which the old man vacated.

  ‘Did you serve Aungier Street?’ he asked Mr O’Connor.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr O’Connor, beginning to search his pockets for memoranda.

  ‘Did you call on Grimes?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Well? How does he stand?’

  ‘He wouldn’t promise. He said: “I won’t tell anyone what way I’m going to vote.” But I think he’ll be all right.’

  ‘Why so?’

  ‘He asked me who the nominators were; and I told him, I mentioned Father Burke’s name. I think it’ll be all right.’

  Mr Henchy began to snuffle and to rub his hands over the fire at a terrific speed. Then he said:

  ‘For the love of God, Jack, bring us a bit of coal. There must be some left.’

  The old man went out of the room.

  ‘It’s no go,’ said Mr Henchy, shaking his head. ‘I asked the little shoeboy, but he said: “O, now, Mr Henchy, when I see the work going on properly I won’t forget you, you may be sure.’ Mean little tinker! ‘Usha, how could he be anything else?’

  ‘What did I tell you, Mat?’ said Mr Hynes. ‘Tricky Dicky Tierney.’

  ‘O, he’s as tricky as they make ’em,’ said Mr Henchy. ‘He hasn’t got those little pig’s eyes for nothing. Blast his soul! Couldn’t he pay up like a man instead of: “O, now Mr Henchy, I must speak to Mr Fanning … I’ve spent a lot of money.” Mean little schoolboy of hell! I suppose he forgets the time his little old father kept the hand-me-down shop in Mary’s Lane.’