The Dark

  At the window he wound the green clock, the key twisted in the silence, he pulled back the clothes, and awkwardly got into bed. The feet were cold as clay as they touched on the way down.

  “Will you be able to sleep now?”

  “Soon. I’ll be able to go to sleep.”

  “I’m sorry I woke you up. I just cracked the match to see if you were alright. You don’t mind now, do you?”

  “No. I don’t mind. It’s alright.”

  “We’re too cooped up in ourselves here. That’s the trouble. We haven’t had a word for ages together. People need an outing now and again. You’d like a day out, wouldn’t you? We could go to town together. We could have tea in the Royal Hotel. It’d be a change. It’d take us out of ourselves. People get cooped up in themselves. You’d like to go to town, wouldn’t you?” the voice was growing restless with excitement.

  “It’d be nice,” the wary answer came, there had been too many of those midnight heart-easings that could go on far into the mornings. All this talk and struggle to get to terms or understanding that’d last for no longer than the sleep of this night. It was always changed by the morning: shame and embarrassment and loathing, the dirty rags of intimacy. The struggle was not his struggle nor the words, and there were worse things in these nights than words.

  “In every house there are differences. Things don’t all the time run smooth. Though that’s not what counts, sure it’s not.”

  “No.”

  “As long as we know that. That’s all that matters. Even though things don’t run right. As long as people know that, what happens doesn’t matter as long as the feeling between them is right. Then things can’t run wrong for long, isn’t that right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Even Up Above there was trouble. There’s differences everywhere. But that’s not what matters. Everyone loses their temper and says things and does things but as long as you know there’s love there it doesn’t matter. Don’t you know I love you no matter what happens?”

  “I do.”

  “And you love your father?”

  “I do.”

  “You’ll give your father a kiss so?”

  The old horror as hands were put about him and the other face closed on his, the sharp stubble grown since the morning and the nose and the kiss, the thread of the half-dried mucus coming away from the other lips in the kiss.

  “You don’t have to worry about anything. There’s no need to be afraid or cry. Your father loves you,” and hands drew him closer. They began to move in caress on the back, shoving up the nightshirt, downwards lightly to the thighs and heavily up again, the voice echoing rhythmically the movement of the hands.

  “You don’t have to worry about anything. Your father loves you. You like that—it’s good for you—it relaxes you—it lets you sleep. Would you like me to rub you here? It’ll ease wind. You like that? It’ll let you sleep.”

  The words drummed softly as the stroking hands moved on his belly, down and up, touched with the fingers the thighs again, and came again on the back.

  “We’ll go to town one of these days. We can walk together round the shops and look for a new suit for you in Curleys. We can go to the Royal Hotel for tea.”

  The hands moved more tensely. The breathing quickened.

  “You like that. It’s good for you,” the voice breathed jerkily now to the stroking hands.

  “I like that.”

  There was nothing else to say, it was better not to think or care, and the hands—the rhythmic words—were a kind of pleasure if thought and loathing could be shut out. The growing hotness and the sweat were the worst but it was better to lie in the arms and not listen except to the thick lulling rhythm of the voice as the hands stroked and not listen and not care. It was easy that way except for the waves of loathing that would not stay back.

  “You’ll kiss your father good night?”

  The lips closed and breath went as his arms crushed, now the repulsion of the mad flesh crushing in the struggle for breath.

  “Good night, sleep well,” he said and it was unimaginable relief to be free and to suck breath in and to wipe his track off the lips.

  “Good night, Daddy.”

  “Good night, my son. Go to sleep now.”

  There was no hope of sleep, though soon the heavy breathing told that Mahoney had moved almost immediately into sleep. It was impossible to lie close. The loathing was too great. He lay far out on the bed’s edge, but as Mahoney moved in his sleep all the clothes began to be dragged away, gathering in a huge ball around Mahoney, till only a sheet was left to cover him out on the bed’s edge. It was bitterly cold and the loathing had soon to perish in the cold. He had to draw close to the sleeping heap of warmth. He tried to ease the clothes out from underneath the great body, but it needed too much force, it was too risky—he might wake. Not even whimpering could pass the time for long. The loud ticking of the clock filled the room when that stopped. As light grew its face would grow clear, it’d be possible to read the figures, but that was too far away in this cold under the single linen sheet. He tried again to free some clothes and the eiderdown came. He could bear it now. Though he’d give anything he had for one more blanket or the morning yet. Lunatic hatred rose choking against the restless sleeping bulk in the ball of blankets, the stupid bulk that had no care for anything except itself.

  The bats screeched continually round the eaves outside. Morning got closer, and the fleas were biting. One was feeding on his shoulder. He tried to crush blindly down with his hand but it was no use. At least they were at his father too, that was why the bulk sleeping in the pile of blankets was so restless, other nights he slept like a log. They’d wake him yet. He was trying to scratch in his sleep. The fleas were having a real feast. He’d have to wake soon, and soon he did, an arm tearing itself free of the blankets.

  “Are you sleeping?”

  “No.”

  “Do you find anything?”

  “I think the fleas are at it,” he was able to keep the laugh back.

  “I seem to be just one itch. They’re going mad. The dose of DDT last month must have done no good.”

  He got out on the floor, found the box of matches, and lit the lamp on the table.

  He dealt with his shirt first, taking it off, examining it inch by inch on the table. Each flea he found he kept it pressed under his hand till it was dead or exhausted. He’d catch it between both thumb-nails then, where it cracked utterly out of life, a red speck of skin and blood crushed on the nail.

  The hunt started, five fleas in the sheets lively and hard to nail, but the blankets were easier, the fleas there warm and lazy with blood in the wool. The thumb-nails were easily brought to bear, there was no danger of the lightning hop free, they were too drugged, and one movement crushed them into another red speck in their sleep.

  “If we don’t get our death out of this we’ll be alright,” Mahoney said when it was over. “Sixteen fleas in the bed. We’ll just have to get boxes of ddt and fumigate the whole house tomorrow. Do you think you’ll be able to go to sleep now?”

  “I’ll be able to sleep.”

  Mahoney’s eyes caught the red on his own thumb-nails as he turned to quench the lamp. He brought them closer in fascination, bending his hair dangerously into the heat of the lamp.

  “Your blood and mine,” Mahoney said. “Those bastards feeding all the night on our blood. The quicker we get the ddt the better. Just think of it—those bastards feeding all the night on your blood and mine.”

  He blew out the flame and got into bed. The heavy blankets were marvellous and warm after. There was no repulsion as their flesh touched deep down in the clothes. There was no care of anything any more.

  “Try and get some sleep, it’ll be soon morning.”

  “Good night, Daddy.”

  “Good night. Try and get some sleep like a good man.”

  4

  FATHER GERALD CAME EVERY YEAR, HE WAS A COUSIN AND HIS coming was a kind of w
atch. Mahoney hated it, but because of his fear of a priest’s power he made sure to give the appearance of a welcome.

  The front room was dusted and swept, the calico covers removed from the armchairs. A fire burned in the grate from early morning. A hen was killed and cooked for cold chicken, the set of wedding china unrolled out of the protective sheets in the bottom of the press. Though even in the lamplight and the friendly hissing of logs on the fire, the cloth bleached in the frost white as snow on the table, the room remained lifeless as any other good example.

  “What do you want to be in the world?” the priest asked as the evening wore.

  “I don’t know, father. Whatever I’m let be I suppose.”

  “That’s good truth out of your mouth for once,” Mahoney asserted. “It’s not what you want to be, it’s what you’ll be let be. He’ll be like me I suppose. He’ll wear out his bones on the few acres round this house and be buried at the end of the road.”

  “We’ll be all buried,” the priest insisted with an icy coldness, and it made the father crazy to do some violence.

  “I sincerely hope so,” he’d no care left whether he con¬ cealed his hatred or not any more. “It’s some comfort to know that if you’re not buried for love’s sake you’ll be buried for the stink’s sake at any rate.”

  A flush coloured in the priest’s pale and sunken cheeks but he stayed calm.

  “He may not have to slave on any farm. He’s been always head of his class.”

  “I was head of my class once too and far it got me.”

  “Times have changed. There are openings and oppor-tunities today that never were before.”

  “I don’t see them if there is, you can go to England, that’s all I see.”

  He’d not be like his father if he could. He’d be a priest if he got the chance, and there were dreams of wooden pulpits and silence of churches, walking between yew and laurel paths in prayer, an old house with ivy and a garden, orchards behind. He’d walk that way through life towards the un-namable heaven of joy, not his father’s path. He’d go free in God’s name.

  “Don’t worry. Work at your books at school and we’ll see what happens,” the priest said as he shook hands at the gate.

  “Work at your books,” the father mimicked as his car left. “They’re free with plans for other people’s money, not their own. There he goes. Christmas comes but once a year.”

  He worked through the winter as hard as he was able and in summer won a scholarship to the Brothers’ College. There wasn’t much rejoicing.

  “Take it if you want and don’t take it if you don’t want. It’s your decision. I won’t have you blaming me for the rest of your life that the one chance you did get that I stood in your way. Do what you want to do.”

  He knew Mahoney wanted him to stay from school and work in the fields.

  “I’ll take it,” he said in spite of what he knew.

  “Take it so and may it choke you but I’ll not have you saying in after years that I kept you from it.”

  “I’ll go,” he said and he knew he was defying Mahoney, some way he’d be made pay for it.

  A second-hand bicycle was got and fixed up. In September he started.

  He hadn’t long to wait for trouble. The new subjects didn’t leave him much time to give the help in the fields Mahoney had been used to. There was constant trouble, it rose to a warning when he refused to stop for the potato digging.

  “I can’t. I’ll miss too much. Once you fall behind it’s too hard to catch up.”

  “Go but I’m warning you that what I dig must be off the ridges before night.”

  “I’ll be home quick. The evenings are long enough yet.”

  “That’s your business. But I’m warning you it’ll be your own funeral if they’re not off the ridges before night.”

  The first two evenings they were able to have the ridges cleared before dark. Mahoney seemed disappointed. He kept complaining, he wanted trouble, and he had only to wait for the next evening to get his chance. It came stormy, the sky a turmoil of black shifting cloud, and the wind so strong on the open parts of the road that not even stepping on the pedals could force the bike much faster than walking pace. The others were afraid in the kitchen when he came home late.

  “Our father’s wild. We’ll never get what he’s dug picked before night,” they were afraid.

  It started to rain as he gulped his meal, the first drops loud on the pane, and it was raining steadily by the time they were on their way to the field.

  Between the lone ash trees, their stripped branches pale as human limbs in the rain, Mahoney worked. The long rows of the potatoes stretched to the stone wall, the rows washed clean on top by the rain, gleaming white and pink and candle-yellow against the black acres of clay; and they had to set to work without any hope of picking them all. Their clothes started to grow heavy with rain. The wind numbed the side of their faces, great lumps of clay held together by dead stalks gathered about their boots.

  Yet Mahoney would not leave off. He paid no attention to them. He had reached close to the stone wall and he was muttering and striking savagely with the spade as he dug.

  “He’ll never leave off now. There’s no knowing what he’ll do,” it was Joan.

  “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter at all.”

  Then they saw him come, blundering across the muddy ridges.

  “Give me the bucket in the name of Jesus. Those bloody spuds’ll not pick themselves.”

  He heaped fistfuls of mud into the bucket with the potatoes, in far too great a rush, and the bucket overturned and scattered his picking back on the ridge. He cursed and started to kick the bucket.

  “Nothing right. Nothing right. Nothing ever done right. All lost in this pissin mess.”

  The blue shirt was plastered to his body under the army braces and showed naked. They thought he was going to go for them.

  “I’ll get me death out of this. Such cursed yokes to be saddled with. No help, no help,” he turned to the rain instead.

  “I’ll get me death out of this pissin mess,” he cursed as he went stumbling over the ridges to the house.

  “That itself is one good riddance,” was the harsh farewell after him in the rain.

  They went on picking but it was hopeless, the dark was thickening. They were walking on the potatoes.

  “We’re only tramping them into the ground, Joan.”

  “But he’ll murder us if we stop.”

  “Let him murder. We can pick no more. We’ll have to cover the heap before we go in, that’s all.”

  “But I’m afraid.”

  “It’s alright. I’ll tell him when I go in. There’s no need to be afraid.”

  “I don’t want to go in,” it was Mona.

  “It’s not the end of the world, you know, they’re only bloody spuds when all is said.”

  But why had things to happen as they did, why could there not be some happiness, it’d be as easy.

  “As I was going to the fair of Athy I met nine men and their nine wives, how many were going to the fair of Athy?”

  “Only the one, the rest were coming.”

  “Aren’t you clever now of the County Roscommon?” and they were beginning to laugh.

  They had to tidy still the face of the pit and it looked strange no matter what. The long pyramid sloped palely upwards to the edge, the sides washed white, gleaming blobs of flesh in the rain. They covered it with the green rushes, and weighed them down with shovelfuls of clay.

  “God, Ο God, Ο God,” they started to mimic, it was an old game between them, it brought relief.

  “In the County Home you’ll finish up and don’t say then that your father didn’t warn you.”

  “Wilful waste is woeful want. God, Ο God, Ο God.”

  It was very dark, the wind had risen, sweeping walls of rain across the fields. Some of the last leaves fell lightly against them as they came through the orchard. He had the lamp lit and no blinds down, so they made strai
ght for its yellow tunnel into the night, brilliants of the raindrops flashing through.

  Mahoney sat in his dry clothes in the kitchen. The fire was blazing, traces of his eaten meal were on the table, he was more tired than angry, but he felt he had to squash the accusation of them standing there in dripping clothes.

  “Did you pick them all?”

  “No.”

  “They’ll be in a grand state if the frost comes.”

  “I never saw frost and rain together.”

  “Did you not now? You’re bound to know all about it too, aren’t you, and you going to college too.”

  There was no attempt to answer, but Mahoney did nothing, only kept complaining.

  “And did you cover the pit itself?”

  “We did—with the rushes.”

  “I suppose you’ll be expecting a leather medal for that much,” he jeered.

  The only answer was a curse under the breath, and a turning to the room to change, to break into a fit of weeping, the hands gripping the brass railing of the bed going white. When he was calm enough to change and come down Mahoney was still nagging wearily in the kitchen.

  Even he had to tire and stop sometime and when he did the uneasiness grew if anything deeper in the silence where they listened to the overflow from the tar barrels spill out on the flagstones of the street.

  5

  ONE DAY SHE WOULD COME TO ME, A DREAM OF FLESH IN woman, in frothing flimsiness of lace, cold silk against my hands.

  An ad. torn from the Independent by my face on the pillow, black and white of a woman rising. Her black lips open in a yawn. The breasts push out the clinging nightdress she wears, its two thin white straps cross her naked shoulders. Her arms stretch above her head to bare the growths of hair in both armpits.

  REMOVE SUPERFLUOUS HAIR

  The eyes devour the tattered piece of newspaper as hotness grows. Touch the black hair with the lips, salt of sweat same as my own, let them rove along the rises of the breast. Press the mouth on the black bursting lips, slip the tongue through her teeth. Go biting along the shoulder over the straps to the dark pits again. She stirs to life, I have her excited, she too is crazy, get hands under her. One day she must come to me. I try to pump madly on the mattress, fighting to get up her nightdress, and get into her, before too late, swoon of death into the softness of her flesh. One day, one day, one day rising to a breaking wave, and that shivering pause on the height before the seed pulses, and the lips kiss frantically on the pillow.