The Garden

by L. A. G. Strong

  “Ay, Paddy. What the hell a’ you doin’ there? ”

  Paddy waved at them—not too ostentatiously, for other occupants of the seats were showing faint signs of scandal.

  “Oho,” he muttered sardonically, “belt away, me lads. Belt away.”

  “Look,” said Dermot, “there’s Long Mike.”

  “Where? ”

  “There. Down near the water’s edge.”

  “Oh, be the holy. Yes. I see’m. He’ll have to come up ou’ o’ that, with the tide risin’.”

  As they watched, they saw Mike look up and apparently remonstrate with some boys on the rock above him, who were throwing down bits of seaweed. The boys grinned. Presently one of them, leaning over, aimed a winkle.

  “I mind,” said Paddy, “one day, on that rock, when the gala was on, there was a big boat passed close by, and the wash of her came up and gave them fellas on that rock a quare lick. A quare lick, it gave them.”

  “Were you there? ”

  “I was above. I do be always watchful for the tide. There’s always some lads forgets that, and gets cot.”

  A few more minutes, and the band struck up. The Forty Foot Committee had every reason to congratulate themselves on the day. It was a glorious afternoon, the sea was calm, and they had a wonderful concourse of swimmers to amuse a record crowd.

  The programme began with the usual club handicaps, for which none of the stars were entered. Yet even these lesser swimmers Dermot watched with envy. Even the outside handicap starters, those who leaped in at the word “go,” were far faster, far more accomplished than he. Race after race he watched, all much alike, all serving to whet the appetite for the great events of the day, which should show the marvellous powers of the three best swimmers in Ireland. Dillon, Murray, and Mahony—with monotonous regularity the three finished first, second, third in every open event for which they entered. Murray you would pick out from any crowd of starters as a winner: a huge, genial, grinning man, with the deep chest and long arms of a giant. When one saw him in the water, it seemed inconceivable that any human being could travel faster. Mahony, too, was a fine big man, more of the swimmer’s build, with flesh on him. But Dillon, who by some actual miracle did travel faster than either, was not remarkable in a crowd of athletes. He was muscular and well developed, but no judge of form on dry land would put him before the other two, or before many another splendid big athlete who had come to try his arm. Dermot had seen the three many times. He had seen them clean up all three places in the Open Quarter: he had seen them, individually, win a score of races: he had seen Dillon carry off the Hundred by a second from Haynes the Scotsman, beating the Amateur Record to that date. But neither he nor anyone else saw Dillon swim such a race as he swam that day, in the Two Hundred Yards Handicap which closed the meeting.

  The Diving went off beautifully, according to plan. The star of those days, beginning already to wane, was a little pleasant man named Coldwell. A consistent and practised diver, with twenty years of success behind him, and a name for diving from all the most spectacular eminences along the coast, he was being challenged by the younger generation, and just managing to hold his own. This time, he had to be content with a second in the Standing Headers. One after another, in tense stillness, over the semicircular pit of upturned faces, the lonely figures walked to the end of the board, hesitated, stood poised, then rose in the air like birds, curving away downwards in a perfect arc, entering the water with hardly a splash, and reappearing almost before their twin feet had gone under. So high was the level that when any left the board ungracefully, or splashed with so much as an instep at fault, a kind of angry sigh went up from the crowd. Failure they would deride openly: not from cruelty, but because no one who was not a first class diver had any business to compete in such a show. In the end, the prize was won by a swarthy, tall, imperturbable man named M’Guinness. Desmond O’Dowda, after an extra dive, was awarded third.

  “He’s quare’n’ souple, yeer cousin,” commented Paddy. “Quare’n’ souple.”

  He always said this. Certain ideas were linked together in Paddy’s mind in a way that would delight those gentlemen who wish, at a moderate fee, to improve our memories for us. He could never think of one part of these composite associations without remembering, and proclaiming, the rest. In the same way, each rock along the coast had a story attached to it, permanently, as a part of its reality. Past and present co-existed in Paddy’s mind. The new experience did not displace the old: it was just added to it. Paddy had but one scene, the landscape of the only place he had inhabited. He would go on filling it in, to the day of his death, adding more names and more ideas to the map, devoting to it the full force of a mind and a memory that had no burden and no distractions outside the range of immediate physical experience.

  “Here th’ come,” cried Paddy eagerly. “Here th’ come.”

  Chattering, laughing self-consciously, hugging their arms, shivering, hopping on their toes, the swimmers were coming down for the last race. There was a big crowd of them. It was half a minute before the great ones could be discerned, at the back of all: those who would have to stand at the top of the steps, and watch coolly the others leap in, one after another, till the sea was full of heads, of thrashing arms and feet, till there seemed no hope of catching even the nearest of those fast receding racers. M’Gulligan, Beatty, O’Dea: the onlookers ticked them off in whispers: Murray, Mahony, together, talking to one another, Murray grinning: a gap: then—Ah! a murmur ran round the packed mass: Dillon himself, holding his arms, quiet, aloof, looking nowhere, seeing nobody. They gazed in awe at the famous and legendary figure. The fastest swimmer in Ireland! Swam in th’ Olympic Games, agen a bloody big Swede! There—that man. Him.

  Suddenly, before anyone but the first starters realised, the race had begun.

  “A’ ye ready? Get ready! Go! ”

  Crash! A solitary swimmer dived in and was making his way purposefully outwards. Four laps of fifty yards… “Three! Four! Five! ”—two more joined him in the water—“Seven! Eight! ”—then it became almost comic, for at every number one or two or three swimmers plunged in. The water was all broken. It was full of heads and foam.

  “Forty-one! Forty-two! Forty-three! ”

  The splashes were fewer now. There were only four men left. Dillon moved slowly down the steps. Exquisitely, magnificently self-conscious, he looked away out to sea, to the horizon, taking no notice of the proceedings.

  “Fifty! ”

  Crash! In went Mahony.

  “Fifty-two! ”

  Murray shot forward like a great thunderbolt of flesh, and was yards out before one could gasp, his head under water, his great arms thrashing, his feet waving faintly on the surface. Astonishing to relate, Murray did not kick. He used his feet only for steering.

  Dillon was alone. Slowly he leaned forward, and stretched out his arms from his sides. The first starters had finished one lap, and were heading inshore again. Oh, it was impossible that he——

  “Fifty-eight! ”

  The tense body flung itself at the water like a stone from a catapult, and began, with an icy, controlled fury, to tear its way across the strait between it and the others. Cries, shudders of awe rose from the onlookers. This was not a man, but a projectile. When he passed the first incoming swimmer, he had halved the distance between Murray and himself. Then he was lost in a welter of heads and red thrashing arms. The crowd groaned angrily, to see such speed frustrated by the mere impenetrable mob of swimmers. But Dillon was not lost. Half way in, they caught sight of him again, no longer the last, nor near the last, tearing his way along, dodging in and out through the swimmers like an otter, but still impossibly far behind the leaders.

  “Good man, Dillon! Stick to it! Good man! Good man! ”

  A roar of encouragement rose as he touched the steps, and was off again on his heroic, hopeless chase. The spectators sank back into their seats.

  “Jasus,” breathed Paddy, “there’s a gait o’ goin’! ” />
  Dermot barely heard him. His nails were gripped into the sweating palms of his hands, and he breathed as if he too were racing. Then, suddenly, the crowd began to stir. Ludicrous, preposterous though it was—if he kept on like this——But no. He could never get through the mass of competitors. He——Yes! Look! Bedam, but there was a chance! There was just the outside edge of the cat’s whisker of a bloody, immortal chance !

  A murmur rose, fell to silence: rose again, and burst out suddenly into a roar. The bewitched, demoniac apparition of the swimmer was thrashing on, faster than ever, threading his way in and out through the brown heads like a needle through a sack. He reached the turn, and came back on the last lap. There were twenty in front of him ; the furthest of them was already halfway home. Oh, begod, begod, begod! The crowd was on its feet, yelling, clenching fists, beating downward with stiff arms, sending out the might of a thousand aching wills to animate those flail-like arms, those steel-spring thighs, with the last necessary super-human burst of power. In he came, clawing the yards away, flinging them behind him, passing swimmers as if they were standing still. Twenty-five yards to go—twenty—fifteen—he’s certain of a place—he’s up—he’s blocked—a twist, a leap in the foam, the flash of an outstretched hand——By God, he’s HOME !

  A yell arose, an explosion, a sheer flame of sound, that sent up every gull within two miles. Strangers turned, laughing enthusiastically, and caught strangers by the arm, shaking hands, punching them, tears of joy running down their faces. Then all leaned forward to roar blessings on the tired, white figure, as it pulled itself up slowly by the handrail, and climbed the steps, looking old and dazed. Two officious stewards bustled down, barging the crowds aside, and took each an arm. After a few yards, he disengaged himself with a smile, and straightened up. The marvellous vitality asserted itself again. When he reached the dressing room, safely out of sight of all the adoring girls and women, he sat down, and belched loudly, three times. It had cost him a great deal of inconvenience not to belch before, but he felt he owed it to the little green shamrock embroidered on the breast of his costume. As it happened, his scruples were unnecessary. The crowd were cheering so loudly that a salvo of belches would have passed unheard.

  “Well, begod,” said a man behind Paddy and Dermot, as they went down to the harbour, “Say what ye will, whatever they give’m for that, he earned it.”

  Chapter XXXI

  It was only natural that, as time went on Dermot should be less and less with Paddy. The Sea Wall belonged definitely to the past. An occasional hunt for a conger was all it could hope. Any fishing the two did now was in Kingstown Harbour. They fished for flatfish off the steps above the bandstand: they fished for pollack, smelts, and whiting from the mailboat pier. But now that Dermot spent most of every morning at the open air swimming baths, and Paddy had to put in three afternoons a week at his occupation as cleaner to the schools, the two had less chance to bear one another company. Dermot was experiencing the strange feeling which comes to all who mentally outgrow a companion: the uneasy sense of disloyalty, the self accusation, and, in Dermot’s case, the fear of being thought snobbish, which had always troubled him since his meeting with the schoolmaster and the boys. He was as fond of Paddy as ever, but being with Paddy no longer satisfied him. An afternoon or an evening now and then he could look forward to: but a whole day palled. The Loughlinstown Walk had become a difficult engagement to fulfil. Paddy, with nothing to do but talk, became a burden before they reached Ballybrack. Dermot was at just the wrong age. A grown man would have asked nothing better than to provoke Paddy’s tongue to comment and reminiscence. Dermot thought he had heard it all, and Paddy, conscious of a constraint somewhere, sought to ease it by volubly disinterring the past. The Dublin types whom Dermot met through Con seemed to him more interesting, because of their novelty: he could imitate Paddy in his sleep, and forecast, with high accuracy, in what terms or with what precise imprecation he would greet any given event. The fact had to be faced. Paddy, as guide, philosopher, and friend, was outmoded. This, Dermot obscurely felt, was fair and reasonable: but he looked back on his life, and saw it as a series of supersessions, his toy monkey superseded by Paddy-monkey, Paddy-monkey superseded by Paddy Kennedy, Paddy Kennedy now superseded by—whom? Did it matter? Looking back, he felt old, and faithless. He could not help changing, but felt the necessity as a weakness in his nature. Con was his idol: but he could not worship even Con in everything. In one or two ways, he felt older than Con. Was there something wrong with him, he wondered, something incurably shallow, which would prevent his ever being wholly faithful to anyone? He was neither wholly in his parents’ camp, nor in Delgany—though far, far more in Delgany: not wholly anywhere. That had always been the trouble: as on the far distant but remembered occasion when he had taken the housemaid’s part against his Mother, because the housemaid was in the right. That was an attitude not praised anywhere in life, that he could find. At school, you had to be all for your house, all for your school. In religion, you had (like the Delgany people) to be all for God. “He that is not with me,” as Con so frequently repeated with emphasis, “is against me.” Dermot seemed fated always to seek a place somewhere in the middle. He had never been able to believe any institution absolutely right, and he did not see how he was going to be either a complete freethinker, like his father—a position growing daily less attractive to him ; or an out and out believer like Con. He wanted to believe: but it was so difficult. Con and Eileen did not make it any easier. His father’s arguments, which seemed to Dermot so convincing, which he had so often used at school, to the consternation or delight of his audience, simply slid off Delgany. If only Con and Eileen would answer them, smash them to smithereens, how happy he would be! But they would not answer them. They would not even admit that there was anything to answer. Dermot could not resist the treasonous thought that they did not answer them, simply because they did not understand: that their steadfastness was, from an intellectual point of view, the courage of those who do not realise danger. He suffered acutely from this. They said that reason should never be applied to faith: that to use it so was the temptation for reason, just as to get drunk was the temptation for thirst. And yet, to Dermot, reason seemed essential. While he brooded, circumstance took a hand.

  It was a Saturday, fine, shining after early rain. Eileen was playing in a tennis tournament. Con and Dermot were to take her to Bray in the machine, and suit themselves whether they stayed to watch, or went off into the mountains and picked her up on their way home. They were starting early, for she had discovered that she must get a new pair of stockings, which meant making a long detour by the city.

  “Good luck to ye, now! ”

  Aunt Patricia stood waving vaguely on the steps. Her family all played games passionately, but she hardly knew which game they were going out to play, or what result to enquire for when they came home.

  “Thank you, Mummy darling! Go on in now, and don’t be standing there getting your death.”

  Aunt Patricia looked startled, for the air was warm and gentle. Then she smiled wanly, recognising one of the many sayings of her own which her irreverent offspring delighted to turn against her.

  “Oh,” she said, “ye’re a nice lot.”

  The roar of the engine drowned her voice, and she went in, still smiling, and shaking her head. She had a great deal to put up with, and much enjoyed putting up with it.

  The roads were greasy, and Con, worming his way along the tramlines, commented freely on the vanity and lack of foresight which made the detour necessary. Eileen replied with equanimity, finally slanging him in such vigorous Dublin that he grinned, and began treating the expedition as a game, whisking round the broad behinds of the trams, and sounding his horn at old women with shawls over their heads, who turned to curse, but broke reluctantly into smiles at sight of the good-natured handsome face laughing into their own. A slight skid, however, made him serious again: for, despite his impetuosity in other respects, Con was a very careful
driver.

  The stockings were bought, and soon they were making comfortable way along the Rock Road towards the scene of the tournament. For a while all three shouted happy conversation together, but gradually, oppressed by some strange uneasiness, they grew silent. Con made a few remarks, to try and lift the cloud: Eileen answered him shortly at first, then not at all. There was no possible reason to be seen for discomfort, yet it seemed to drop upon them from the trees, to reverberate back with their own echoes from the walls. Cursing softly to himself, Con slowed down, and proceeded with great care, almost in the gutter.

  Suddenly he turned his face, and they saw that the sweat was standing on his forehead.

  “I’ve felt this way before,” he said, forcing a laugh.

  “When was that? ” asked Eileen.

  “Down on the sands.”

  Dermot knew what he meant. It was on the sands near Portmarnock, where he raced.

  “It was just before a bad smash,” continued Con. “So, fuss or no fuss, I’m going to be on the safe side.”

  “You’ll be in the ditch, if you go any closer,” retorted Eileen, also forcing a laugh.

  Con smiled, but he kept his way, bending intently forward, watching the road, and hooting tremendously before every turning. They bowled temperately along a straight half mile, at the end of which loomed a pair of high stone gateposts, the entrance to a drive. Immediately past them, the road curved off to the right. As they were nearing the end, they became aware of the roar of a powerful bicycle behind them.

  “Indian,” said Con at once. He bent forward, hesitated, then swung a rapid glance backwards. The pursuer, tearing along at a tremendous pace, was three hundred yards behind. Con looked ahead at the gates, and calculated swiftly that they would both arrive there at about the same time. He hesitated, wrinkled up his face, and with sudden resolve switched off the engine.

  “What—” cried Eileen, raising herself in the sidecar: but the roar of the approaching engine drowned her voice. They were fifty yards from the gates. Acting upon another impulse, Con put on the brakes. Though the speed was nothing, the combination skidded slightly ; the wheel of the sidecar hit the grass edge of the ditch, and they stopped with a bump, leaving the Indian a clear road. With a shattering roar, he was up and past them: two riders, one behind on the carrier. What happened then, they never knew. Maybe the driver suddenly realised that the corner was sharper than he thought, and tried to brake: maybe he tried to get round as he was. The three horrified watchers saw the great scarlet machine suddenly falter, and then shoot with the speed of a shell smack into the second of the two stone pillars. The driver struck the stone head on: his head burst, like a tomato thrown at a wall. In an instant, there was nothing but a wrecked machine and two motionless forms beside it. One thing only moved: something red, dripping from the gatepost.