The Short Fiction of Flann O'Brien

  “Do you not see it, man?” Mr. Toole said in surprise. “For seven hundred years, thousands—no, I’ll make it millions—of Irish men and women have died for Ireland. We never rared jibbers; they were glad to do it, and will again. But that young man was born for Ireland. There was never anybody else like him. Why wouldn’t he be proud?”

  “The Lord save us!” Mr. O’Hickey cried.

  “A saint I called her,” Mr. Toole said, hotly. “What am I talking about—she’s a martyr and wears the martyr’s crown to-day!”

  Donabate (1952)

  by Myles na gCopaleen

  It may seem an odd thing to say that, not so long ago, it was a common thing to see the late Sir Sefton Fleetwood-Crawshaye, O.B.E., very drunk in a rather low Dublin public house—and consorting with questionable fellows. And yet he was the perfect gentleman.

  Sir Sefton was an Englishman who had spent an industrious and frugal lifetime looking after British railway stations in the capacity of architect. With his pension and savings, he was well-to-do on retirement but, entertaining great fear of his native country’s Socialist Chancellor, hastily settled down in Dublin. Here—a man to whom in the past a small sherry seemed excess—he was induced by some demon to drink a glass of Irish whiskey. It was the glass of doom.

  The velocity of his disintegration was startling. He began to drink whiskey all day long—longer, indeed, than the licensing day, for he would rise at seven in the morning to visit the privileged taverns at the markets near the Four Courts.

  At about two one day I saw him in a pub with three chaps I knew. I joined the group. Sir Sefton was truly very drunk and had trouble in plucking the particular star he wanted from the constellation of small ones that was arranged on the counter in front of him. Still, he had them all finished when the half-two closing was called. He ordered one of the chaps to call a taxi.

  “We will all go to Amiens Street Station,” he muttered, “for the holy hour.”

  I could not dissuade him. We went in the taxi. In the station bar, I ordered five small whiskeys.

  “Are ye travellers?” the girl asked.

  “We are,” I said. I noticed that Sir Sefton was appraising the station’s face with his old practised eye.

  “I can’t serve ye if ye haven’t tickets,” the girl said.

  “Where are we supposed to be from?” I asked.

  “Donabate.”

  Donabate! What a place to must be from, a rolling slobland pocked with cheap bungalows and shacks! I turned to go for the tickets, but Sir Sefton had heard. He held up a flat hand.

  “Under no circumstances,” he said. “Leave this to me.”

  He left the bar, heading for the ticket office, using that fast turn of speed which drinkers know to be the only hope of avoiding wild staggers. He returned and pressed five cardboards in my hand. I showed them to the girl and we got our drinks.

  I lost sight of Sir Sefton for some weeks, but I was told that he was making a practice of these visits to Amiens Street at half-two, always buying a ticket to Donabate. Being near the station one day during the hour, I remembered this; I went in, bought a ticket to Donabate, and entered the bar. Yes, Sir Sefton Fleetwood-Crawshaye was there. He saluted me.

  “Donabate?” he asked.

  “Donabate,” I said.

  He nodded in a musing sort of way, and quietly attacked his drink.

  “Do you know,” he said after a pause, “I like this country. I should like to give some small service. I am still an architect, I hope. I understand lay-out. Donabate is very much in need of a survey—for that matter so is every town in Ireland. You will admit the main street could be improved. We need new churches, too, everywhere. Immense improvements need not be costly given skilled planning. . . .”

  He trailed off into a meditation, reviving to mention the vital importance of squares, otherwise how can one hold huge public meetings? I did not find this amusing. It saddened me.

  Each time I met him thereafter, his poor brain had further softened. Overcrowding in Donabate must be ended by the simple expedient of erecting great blocks of flats. The American steel-and-concrete technique would be admirable in such a setting. A race-course would bring much-needed revenue to the town, and were there not great expanses of sand nearby, ideal for gallops? But one must not overlook the necessity for a proper car park, with restaurants, cinemas, and so forth.

  On another occasion he discussed, though rather tentatively, the founding of a university at Donabate.

  “But first,” was ever his final cry, “the survey! The survey first!”

  He meant it, too. He was determined some day to go to Donabate to do the survey.

  One day, as was deposed at the inquest, he entered the bar, showed his ticket and had a drink. He was carrying the reel of tape surveyors use. He kept looking at the clock and suddenly made a wild exit from the bar, tried to enter a train which was just moving off, fell between the train and the platform and was instantly killed.

  I have said he was the perfect gentleman, incapable of a mean act. A month after his death, I put on a raincoat I had not worn for a long time. In the pocket were the five tickets Sir Sefton Fleetwood-Crawshaye insisted on buying the first day we went to the station. Pathetic but noble tokens! They were First Class!

  Two in One (1954)

  by Myles na Gopaleen

  The story I have to tell is a strange one, perhaps unbelievable. I will try to set it down as simply as I can. I do not expect to be disturbed in my literary labours, for I am writing this in the condemned cell.

  Let us say my name is Murphy. The unusual occurrence which led me here concerns my relations with another man whom we shall call Kelly. Both of us were taxidermists.

  I will not attempt a treatise on what a taxidermist is. The word is ugly and inadequate. Certainly it does not convey to the layman that such an operator must combine the qualities of zoologist, naturalist, chemist, sculptor, artist, and carpenter. Who would blame such a person for showing some temperament now and again, as I did?

  It is necessary, however, to say a brief word about this science. First, there is no such thing in modern practice as “stuffing” an animal. There is a record of stuffed gorillas having been in Carthage in the 5th century, and it is a fact that an Austrian prince, Siegmund Herberstein, had stuffed bison in the great hall of his castle in the 16th century—it was then the practice to draw the entrails of animals and to substitute spices and various preservative substances. There is a variety of methods in use to-day but, except in particular cases—snakes, for example, where preserving the translucency of the skin is a problem calling for special measures—the basis of all modern methods is simply this: you skin the animal very carefully according to a certain pattern, and you encase the skinless body in plaster of Paris. You bisect the plaster when cast providing yourself with two complementary moulds from which you can make a casting of the animal’s body—there are several substances, all very light, from which such castings can be made. The next step, calling for infinite skill and patience, is to mount the skin on the casting of the body. That is all I need explain here, I think.

  Kelly carried on a taxidermy business and I was his assistant. He was the boss—a swinish, overbearing mean boss, a bully, a sadist. He hated me, but enjoyed his hatred too much to sack me. He knew I had a real interest in the work, and a desire to broaden my experience. For that reason, he threw me all the common-place jobs that came in. If some old lady sent her favourite terrier to be done, that was me; foxes and cats and Shetland ponies and white rabbits—they were all strictly my department. I could do a perfect job on such animals in my sleep, and got to hate them. But if a crocodile came in, or a Great Borneo spider, or (as once happened) a giraffe—Kelly kept them all for himself. In the meantime he would treat my own painstaking work with sourness and sneers and complaints.

  One day the atmosphere in the workshop had been even fouler than usual, with Kelly in a filthier temper than usual. I had spent the forenoon finishing a cat,
and at about lunch-time put it on the shelf where he left completed orders.

  I could nearly hear him glaring at it. Where was the tail? I told him there was no tail, that it was a Manx cat. How did I know it was a Manx cat, how did I know it was not an ordinary cat which had lost its tail in a motor accident or something? I got so mad that I permitted myself a disquisition on cats in general, mentioning the distinctions as between Felis manul, Felis silvestris, and Felis lybica, and on the unique structure of the Manx cat. His reply to that? He called me a slob. That was the sort of life I was having.

  On this occasion something within me snapped. I was sure I could hear the snap. I had moved up to where he was to answer his last insult. The loathsome creature had his back to me, bending down to put on his bicycle clips. Just to my hand on the bench was one of the long, flat, steel instruments we use for certain operations with plaster. I picked it up and hit him a blow with it on the back of the head. He gave a cry and slumped forward. I hit him again. I rained blow after blow on him. Then I threw the tool away. I was upset. I went out into the yard and looked around. I remembered he had a weak heart. Was he dead? I remember adjusting the position of a barrel we had in the yard to catch rainwater, the only sort of water suitable for some of the mixtures we used. I found I was in a cold sweat but strangely calm. I went back into the workshop.

  Kelly was just as I had left him. I could find no pulse. I rolled him over on his back and examined his eyes, for I have seen more lifeless eyes in my day than most people. Yes, there was no doubt: Kelly was dead. I had killed him. I was a murderer. I put on my coat and hat and left the place. I walked the streets for a while, trying to avoid panic, trying to think rationally. Inevitably, I was soon in a public house. I drank a lot of whiskey and finally went home to my digs. The next morning I was very sick indeed from this terrible mixture of drink and worry. Was the Kelly affair merely a fancy, a drunken fancy? No, there was no consolation in that sort of hope. He was dead all right.

  It was as I lay in bed there, shaking, thinking, and smoking, that the mad idea came into my head. No doubt this sounds incredible, grotesque, even disgusting, but I decided I would treat Kelly the same as any other dead creature that found its way to the workshop.

  Once one enters a climate of horror, distinction of degree as between one infamy and another seems slight, sometimes undetectable. That evening I went to the workshop and made my preparations. I worked steadily all next day. I will not appall the reader with gruesome detail. I need only say that I applied the general technique and flaying pattern appropriate to apes. The job took me four days at the end of which I had a perfect skin, face and all. I made the usual castings before committing the remains of, so to speak, the remains, to the furnace. My plan was to have Kelly on view asleep on a chair, for the benefit of anybody who might call. Reflection convinced me that this would be far too dangerous. I had to think again.

  A further idea began to form. It was so macabre that it shocked even myself. For days I had been treating the inside of the skin with the usual preservatives—cellulose acetate and the like—thinking all the time. The new illumination came upon me like a thunderbolt. I would don his skin and, when the need arose, BECOME Kelly! His clothes fitted me. So would his skin. Why not?

  Another day’s agonised work went on various alterations and adjustments but that night I was able to look into a glass and see Kelly looking back at me, perfect in every detail except for the teeth and eyes, which had to be my own but which I knew other people would never notice.

  Naturally I wore Kelly’s clothes, and had no trouble in imitating his unpleasant voice and mannerisms. On the second day, having “dressed,” so to speak, I went for a walk, receiving salutes from newsboys and other people who had known Kelly. And on the day after, I was foolhardy enough to visit Kelly’s lodgings. Where on earth had I been, his landlady wanted to know. (She had noticed nothing.) What, I asked—had that fool Murphy not told her that I had to go to the country for a few days? No? I had told the good-for-nothing to convey the message.

  I slept that night in Kelly’s bed. I was a little worried about what the other landlady would think of my own absence. I decided not to remove Kelly’s skin the first night I spent in his bed but to try to get the rest of my plan of campaign perfected and into sharper focus. I eventually decided that Kelly should announce to various people that he was going to a very good job in Canada, and that he had sold his business to his assistant Murphy. I would then burn the skin, I would own a business and—what is more stupid than vanity!—I could secretly flatter myself that I had committed the perfect crime.

  Need I say that I had overlooked something?

  The mummifying preparation with which I had dressed the inside of the skin was, of course, quite stable for the ordinary purposes of taxidermy. It had not occurred to me that a night in a warm bed would make it behave differently. The horrible truth dawned on me the next day when I reached the workshop and tried to take the skin off. It wouldn’t come off! It had literally fused with my own! And in the days that followed, this process kept rapidly advancing. Kelly’s skin got to live again, to breathe, to perspire.

  Then followed more days of terrible tension. My own landlady called one day, inquiring about me of “Kelly.” I told her I had been on the point of calling on her to find out where I was. She was disturbed about my disappearance—it was so unlike me—and said she thought she should inform the police. I thought it wise not to try to dissuade her. My disappearance would eventually come to be accepted, I thought. My Kelliness, so to speak, was permanent. It was horrible, but it was a choice of that or the scaffold.

  I kept drinking a lot. One night, after many drinks, I went to the club for a game of snooker. This club was in fact one of the causes of Kelly’s bitterness towards me. I had joined it without having been aware that Kelly was a member. His resentment was boundless. He thought I was watching him, and taking note of the attentions he paid the lady members.

  On this occasion I nearly made a catastrophic mistake. It is a simple fact that I am a very good snooker player, easily the best in that club. As I was standing watching another game in progress awaiting my turn for the table, I suddenly realised that Kelly did not play snooker at all! For some moments, a cold sweat stood out on Kelly’s brow at the narrowness of this escape. I went to the bar. There, a garrulous lady (who thinks her unsolicited conversation is a fair exchange for a drink) began talking to me. She remarked the long absence of my nice Mr. Murphy. She said he was missed a lot in the snooker room. I was hot and embarrassed and soon went home. To Kelly’s place, of course.

  Not embarrassment, but a real sense of danger, was to be my next portion in this adventure. One afternoon, two very casual strangers strolled into the workshop, saying they would like a little chat with me. Cigarettes were produced. Yes indeed, they were plain-clothesmen making a few routine inquiries. This man Murphy had been reported missing by several people. Any idea where he was? None at all. When had I last seen him? Did he seem upset or disturbed? No, but he was an impetuous type. I had recently reprimanded him for bad work. On similar other occasions he had threatened to leave and seek work in England. Had I been away for a few days myself? Yes, down in Cork for a few days. On business. Yes . . . yes . . . some people thinking of starting a natural museum down there, technical school people—that sort of thing.

  The casual manner of these men worried me, but I was sure they did not suspect the truth and that they were genuinely interested in tracing Murphy. Still, I knew I was in danger, without knowing the exact nature of the threat I had to counter. Whiskey cheered me somewhat.

  Then it happened. The two detectives came back accompanied by two other men in uniform. They showed me a search warrant. It was purely a formality; it had to be done in the case of all missing persons. They had already searched Murphy’s digs and had found nothing of interest. They were very sorry for upsetting the place during my working hours.

  A few days later the casual gentlemen called and put m
e under arrest for the wilful murder of Murphy, of myself. They proved the charge in due course with all sorts of painfully amassed evidence, including the remains of human bones in the furnace. I was sentenced to be hanged. Even if I could now prove that Murphy still lived by shedding the accursed skin, what help would that be? Where, they would ask, is Kelly?

  This is my strange and tragic story. And I end it with the thought that if Kelly and I must each be either murderer or murdered, it is perhaps better to accept my present fate as philosophically as I can and be cherished in the public mind as the victim of this murderous monster, Kelly. He was a murderer, anyway.

  After Hours (1967)

  by Brian O’Nolan

  At ten o’clock on week nights, at half-nine on Saturday the tide ebbs suddenly, leaving the city high and dry. Unless you are staying at an hotel or visiting a theatre, you may not lawfully consume excisable liquors within the confines of the county borough. The city has entered that solemn hiatus, that almost sublime eclipse known as The Closed Hours. Here the law, as if with true Select Lounge mentality, discriminates sharply against the poor man at the pint counter by allowing those who can command transport and can embark upon a journey to drink elsewhere till morning. The theory is that all travellers still proceed by stage-coach and that those who travel outside become blue with cold after five miles and must be thawed out with hot rum at the first hostelry they encounter by night or day. In practice, people who are in the first twilight of inebriation are transported from the urban to the rural pub so swiftly by the internal combustion engine that they need not necessarily be aware that they have moved at all, still less comprehend that their legal personalities have undergone a mystical transfiguration. Whether this system is to be regarded as a scandal or a godsend depends largely on whether one owns a car. At present the city is ringed round with these “bonafide” pubs, many of them well-run modern houses, and a considerable amount of the stock-in-trade is transferred to the stomachs of the customers at a time every night when the sensible and just are in their second sleeps. . . .