by Mary Gordon
Vincent is an old man, sitting in a room thousands of miles away from Cork. Father Sullivan is dead, must have been dead for fifty years. Still, his voice is alive in Vincent’s ear. Yet he wonders: could that have been a true story, the priest friend, on the way home from the bed of a dying child, just running into his old playmate in the way it had been told? He doesn’t like to think a priest would lie just for effect, but maybe it was what they called poetic license. On the other hand, stranger coincidences had happened in the world. The words of Father Sullivan still make him afraid. The loss of faith, of virtue and of health, the ruin, mental, physical, and spiritual, the coarsening of every human feeling, and the break of every human tie—that none of it had come to pass was, is nothing to Vincent now. He can hear in his skull once again the words, the hard words, the important words “apostasy,” “damnation,” “treachery,” “the bone and sinew of the Irish nation brutally cut out.” He’d sat in the church in Cork, trying the words out on himself: “traitor,” “apostate,” “lucre-loving materialist.” He feared to say them to himself: what if they fit? At night, in his bed in Mrs. Tierney’s house in the Barrack Stream, he tried them on as well. Suppose he was not yet any one of these things now but could become them? He might not notice it happening. He might have lost his soul, have lost it without knowing.
Fortunately, he confessed his fears to Father Lavery, the confessor to the Pioneers. “Vincent,” the priest had told him in the darkness of the sacrament, “if I were a young man I’d be on the boat beside you.”
Great fellows they were, the Pioneers. Great times he’d had in that huge room above the drapers’, not a bit less enjoyable because of lack of spirits, never mind what the detractors said. The Pioneer Total Abstinence Society, a group with high ideals, considered that liquor was the ruination of the sap and flower of Irish manhood. Why did the Irish take to drink? It was an interesting question to Vincent, one he’d put his mind to often. Without profit. His daughter, too, he’d never wanted to admit that Magdalene had that problem. Now he feels he must. He must begin to tell the truth about the midnight phone calls to her mother. Years ago they started. Cam was still a child. Magdalene would phone and berate Ellen, saying she had never loved her, neither of them had. He knew she said it, though she never spoke to him in those states, and Ellen and he were silent when she hung up the phone. It was her mother she abused. She wasn’t right; it wasn’t that he hadn’t loved her, it was that he didn’t know what to do with her. A pretty girl who couldn’t hold a thing two minutes in her head. Wanting to dress up, going in for playing parts. Nothing to do with me, he’d said, looking at his daughter, unable to get his mind fastened on the kind of person that she was. Unstable. Insubstantial. Odd that she’d made money. She could put her mind to that.
It was a terrible thing for a mother to drink. He’d seen Cam coming to them in the mornings, saying nothing about what her mother had done. Coming to Ellen to be given breakfast. Ellen and Vincent had admired her. They’d felt real admiration for the child. They didn’t have to say anything to each other about their feelings for Cam; each watched how the other behaved. She was the only girl child Ellen ever liked, and you saw why: Cam’s heart was loyal and she didn’t ask for help. She wanted to be around you but there was no needing things from you. You’d take your hat off to a kid like that Dan, too, the two of them, looking after each other. Brother and sister never closer. It had surprised him that his children hadn’t liked each other. Though it shouldn’t have: he and his brother hadn’t liked each other. He’d left home to escape his brother’s hate.
And he’d been right to, right to go to Cork, a green boy, fifteen years of age, apprenticing himself first to the ironworkers Smith and Pearsons, Ltd. He’d taken up the offer that Mr. Leary, who ran the mill in Dromnia, had let him know about. He had a great friend in Cork City, he’d told Vincent, who had a great place for a boy with a fine mechanical sense, like himself.
As a young child he’d found his way over to the mill. He’d been drawn to it. He passed it on the way to school, when he took the walk he liked, beside the river. The sound of the mill wheel fascinated him, and, timid as he was, he had approached it. The machinery had made him dreamy. He remembered now the first time it had happened, how he’d lost himself—in the intricacies of the machine. The gears, the axle: he mooned over them as poets mooned over the mountains or the sea. He would fix his eye, and then be lost. No Vincent, no more body, no mind trying to get around the coiling and incomprehensible ways people acted, what they thought, their hates, despairs, their cruelties.
Mr. Flannery, the manager, who worked in the mill office, was a Protestant. Vincent had taken his fancy. A stern, fastidious bachelor, with pencils showing from the pocket of his old tweed jacket, he had a reputation among the men who worked at the mill for being gruff but fair. The men respected him. Vincent had decided as a child that that was his desire: to be admired for his justice, for his knowledge, by men who worked under him. Only he knew he didn’t want to sit behind the desk; he’d want to be there with the other men. With the machinery.
He’d left school at thirteen to work at the mill, because he knew it was the life for him, the life he liked, men working, simplified by their endeavors, pleasant to each other, rarely speaking, but the silence functional, not ominous like the long silences between him and his brother which hung in the air between them like rows of hooks. The men would say to each other, “Would you pass me that?” or “Could you hold that for me?” or sometimes no need even to say it, for you knew, you were caught up in it, what it was you were to do, what help of yours was needed. When something went wrong with the machinery, you felt like a circle of fathers standing still above the sleeping or the ailing child. Machines brought up in him a painful tenderness. He felt, always, that they were trying. He could help them in their failures. Their failures were not their fault.
Jack Lafferty, the mill attendant, had been kind to him as well. Vincent had often thought Jack Lafferty must have considered him an odd one. Eight years, nine years old, and standing at the wheel like it was heaven, or like it was water in the desert, or the most gorgeous woman in the world. He’d talk to Jack about the workings of it. One day Jack let him watch when the stone stopped dead in its turning and he had to prize the floorboards up to check the gears and find the problem. Come with me, then, he had said, and Vincent followed, stepping carefully and watching, watching, for at his first look he knew he understood the thing and longed to get his hands on it.
He liked how the time went. It was the end of the day before you knew it. He’d not minded being indoors in the finest weather, even, which surprised him: he’d loved his walks out by the river and the caring for the animals. But he had left that, once and for all, and left off schooling when he was just thirteen years old. He was happy he had found his place.
The father had been glad of it. A trade, he said, a fine thing, meaning what he wouldn’t say: Remember that the land is going to the older brother. None of this is yours. The mother had regretted it, taken to heart the lamentations of the teacher, who’d said Vincent should go on with schooling, for he had the gift. The mother had loved the book of poems he’d won for his mathematics, loved to have him read out to her the songs of Thomas Moore, like they were poems. In the book it said that Moore had been a friend of Byron, the great English poet. He’d have been a Protestant, though, Moore, which made it less remarkable that he’d been friends with a rich Englishman. Terrible among the Irish, Catholics hating Protestants, and the hate back. Even now there was bloodshed because of it. He’d never taken a position back at home. “Keep out of it,” his mother had warned him as he’d left for Cork. “Keep out of politics. You’ll only soil your hands. One band of villains armed against the other. There’s no hope in it.”
He’d loved his mother and hadn’t wanted to cause her worry, so he had kept out. She’d been glad that he’d joined the Pioneers instead. He was sorry now that he hadn’t been in the Irish Question. By Easter 1916, h
e was in America, but it had been fermenting all the time in Cork. The parties, so confusing and so numerous you couldn’t keep track. The papers full of it. Confusing. He’d been confused by the First World War and hadn’t taken a position. It was before he met Ellen. She’d taken a position. She’d been against it. He knew that if they’d been in Cork together Ellen would have read the papers, holding them close to her nose as if she could find the truth by reading closer. She’d have been able to make her way. She’d have been in the thick of it, and him too. That was the great thing about Ellen, she’d bring you out into the world. She was a great one for seeing the big picture. “We’re citizens of the world, Vincent,” she’d say. “We can’t forget it.” It was one of the first things he remembered her saying to him. So young and fresh and high-colored, her features sharp, her dark hair shining, in her twenties, but she looked much younger to him. He didn’t know her real age, that she was older than he was, till they were married. “And if you’d known, what would you’ve done?” she said, teasing him, playing with his hair. “You’d have stayed away from the old crone. Just as well for you it never came up.” He let her tease him but it was as well, it was a blessing. If he’d known that she was older, he’d never have approached her. He’d have thought she was above him. He’d always thought that, but he thought that in her youth he’d give her some protection that she needed. If he’d known that she was older, he’d have felt that he had nothing, not a thing that he could give her that she didn’t have herself.
He felt if they had met in Cork they’d have been involved in the Great Struggle. She denied it. She had no interest in the Irish Question. The Irish were bog trotters, she said. They mucked up whatever it was that they touched. Let the English take them all in hand and make a decent country of them. What could you expect of them, a rosary in one hand, a pistol in the other, a flask of poteen in the pocket just in case their other remedies should fail them. There was no tenderness in her for her own country. None.
But she was wrong about herself. She’d have seen the injustice of the English and been stirred. Injustice moved her, and her hatred of it made her great. She’d given up too much of that part of herself for the family, and it was wrong for her, he knows it now, but at the time, what could you do? What could you do when the times were against you, against who you really were?
For his own mother, family was everything. He’d been happy with his mother. People didn’t seem to have fond memories of their parents anymore. His memories of her were fond.
He knew himself her favorite. Perhaps because of the long space between him and the younger girls. For six years she had not conceived. Mysterious. And then she’d conceived four more times. In those years he was her companion, always with her as she did the woman’s work. She’d trusted him to gather eggs and help her with the milking. Together they planted the kitchen garden, and in another plot they’d both felt a bit ashamed of in front of the father and the older brother, they grew flowers. Flowers they’d been told they had no business growing. Sweet peas. Hollyhocks. Ellen had grown those flowers too. Nowadays people didn’t go in for them so much. They liked these modern flowers with their new sharp colors. Modern plants were what the sisters wanted. “Vincent,” they’d pleaded, “we want petunias and geraniums. Coleus.” In their blue station wagon they’d brought home what were called “bedding plants.” It wasn’t how he liked to do things, or the kind of flowers he liked. But to please them he’d planted them out. They’d flourished. And how glad the sisters had been, how grateful. It had made him courtly, manly, their women’s praise, old as he was and even though they themselves were nuns.
It had hurt his mother when he went to Cork. But it had been a good thing. It had been for his advancement. Had he been wrong doing things for his advancement? Had the priest been right, that Father Sullivan, whose voice he still could hear? Had this been his sin, materialism? He was interested, it was true, in the material. Not money. Objects. It was important to him that a thing should be well made. He might, for all that, have stayed on at the mill in Dromnia. But he had left because he could not bear to live beside his brother, having to take in all that hate.
His mother had the countrywoman’s belief in the root evil of all cities. Be careful what you eat, they’ll steal your money, don’t speak to a woman, the milk is full of coal dust, take your tea black, look for a picture of the Sacred Heart before you choose your lodgings. What to her was danger had been what stretched out encouraging and beautiful before his eyes. He’d walked each inch of Cork, the first of his cities. The names came back to him, vivid, exciting names. Patrick Street, the Grand Parade, Anglesea Street, Cool Street, the Vicar’s Lands. He’d loved the harborside, the busyness and action of the ships, the goods unloading and the shouting of the workers on the dock. The warehouses for storing butter, tea, silk, parts of carriages, or furniture. Medicines. Soap. All those things manufactured in dark factories, their brick or stone fronts as inviting to him as a home. His first real job after his apprenticeship was in the brick-front headquarters of Capwell Carriage Works, assistant to the smith there, Owen Dawson. A hard man, unhelpful, not wanting to teach the knowledge that he had. He’d moved from there after consulting Mr. Leary back at the mill in Dromnia, who’d recommended Owen Dawson and whom he didn’t want to disappoint. “Weigh the pros and cons, Vincent, of any decision you make. Weigh them honestly.” Sound advice it had been, and he’d followed it always, had lived by it. Not Ellen. She’d make a decision in an instant, she could feel it on her skin, the right thing, she’d say, and then she’d do it and she’d not look back. But had she always been right? She’d got the proportions wrong. She’d framed it badly. Her ideas were right: hold fast; keep faith, be what you stand for. But she hadn’t done it. What she’d done was to keep people out. She’d mocked him in the end; she’d stopped being who she had been. But he knew that even now she was expecting him to keep his promise: Don’t let me be taken away, don’t let me die among strangers. He had convinced the others that he wanted to go home.
So now he’ll go home. He dreads going back, he’s been happy at Maryhurst. But he can’t say that. At eighty-eight you owed it to people to be the man you always had been, so that they could believe in things and go on.
Weigh all the pros and cons. Give equal weight to each. He’d left the firm of Capwell. Owen Dawson had no will to teach him. The men in the place drank on the sly and muttered constantly against the foreman, who was a time-server and a fool. Vincent realized that only two things kept him there. The first was the twice-weekly visits of Mr. Capwell himself, resplendent in his morning clothes, his spats, his white carnation. The second was the wording of the advertisement in the Cork Examiner which made him proud of his association with the firm: “Capwell Carriage Works,” it read,
Having had a long varied and practical experience in all classes of work, and being thoroughly conversant with the requirements of the Trade, the public are assured of having their orders Executed in a prompt and satisfactory manner, strict attention being paid to repairs of every description at strictly moderate charges. Trial respectfully submitted.
He’d felt it was an honor to be part of such an organization. He was linked up with serious words again, like the words from the pulpit, “conversant” and “satisfactory” now, instead of “eternal damnation” or “apostasy” or “sins against the Holy Ghost.” As time went on, however, he began to know his worth. Then he began to read with care the other advertisements in the Cork Examiner. One day, the first of May it was, the year 1911, he saw two advertisements by the same firm. The perfection of the wording, fitting as it did his talents, his need for employment, and his preference that the employment should be in a firm of grandeur and of style—these came together in the two ads in the paper the same day. The first was an ad to attract potential customers. “Twelve Prize Medals Awarded,” read the headline. “McArdle & Sons, Carriage Builders, Warren Place, Cork.” Then there was white space, and the eye dropped down.
In
vite an Inspection of their Carriages, comprising all that is most Modern, Elegant, and Up to Date. They have also a very extensive variety of cars and carriages at their showrooms.
McArdle & Sons employs the largest staff of workmen in the South of Ireland, and personally supervises each branch of the Business to give the greatest possible attention to the Materials, and special care being paid, using only what is highly Seasoned, they are thereby enabled to guarantee all their work the expertise of which is attested by the large number of Prize Medals they have received.
Prize medals, and the greatest possible attention to materials. He could remember now how he had held the newspaper away from him, then put it down. And then he saw below that advertisement, in another column, the same firm, McArdle & Sons, had advertised a place.