“A pity these things ever have to come up between people,” Jamesie’s eyes went from face to face.
“This fella would never face anything unless there was someone to stand behind him with a stick,” Mary said with an edge. “I haven’t slept since the letter came and he’s been wandering round in a haze.”
“Like a kittymore’s hen,” he tried to joke but she would not be deflected.
“This fella gets all excited every summer when Johnny is coming. The place is done up. The best sirloin is ordered. Then what does he do when Johnny does come home? He disappears. Who has to put up with him? Listening to the old stories that everybody around has long forgot. You’d think the place hadn’t changed since he left. It’s easy for you to talk,” Mary accused.
“He was too old when he went to England,” Jamesie said defensively.
“It’s a hard story,” Ruttledge said.
“He might as well have tied a stone round his neck and rowed out into the middle of the lake,” Jamesie said, and a silence fell in which the ticking and the striking of the clocks were very loud.
“It’s terrible what people will go to hell for …” Mary spoke out of the long silence.
“Change anything you want in that letter,” Ruttledge said as he rose.
“Not a word will be changed. It’ll be copied out word for word and sent in the morning.”
Jamesie looked from face to face, unsure and troubled. For a long while, like a painfully held breath, he seemed on the verge of saying something but then quickly reached for his cap and walked Ruttledge out to the lake. The two dogs abandoned their chairs to follow them. The moon was bright and clear above the lake, the line of the path sharp in yellow light. There was a cold wind.
“What if he doesn’t heed the letter? He can be as stubborn and thick as my father, God rest him,” Jamesie said.
“You won’t hear another word once he reads the letter.”
“Please God,” Jamesie prayed fervently. “The worst of those old bachelors is that they have nobody to please but themselves and then when they get old nobody wants them and they have to try to get their head in somewhere.”
“We may not be all that much better off when our time comes.”
“Still we have our own house. We haven’t to be trying to get in anywhere,” Jamesie said.
They had reached the top of the hill above the lake. “I think the winter is here,” Ruttledge said, drawing his overcoat tight against the bitter wind.
“It’s been here for weeks. You can quit talking.”
At the top of the hill they parted, though Jamesie was prepared to accompany him down to the lake. A river of beaten copper ran sparkling from shore to shore in the centre of the lake. On either side of this bright river peppered with pale stars the dark water seethed. Far away the lights of the town glowed in the sky. His own footsteps were loud. When he came to the corner of the lake, the heron rose out of the reeds to flap him lazily round the shore, ghostly in the moonlight. On such a night a man could easily want to run from his own shadow.
There came unceasing rain and wind. Some days the rain was flecked with snow but the lake was always changing, making even the downpours varied. The cattle and sheep were housed. None were calving or lambing or sick. They did not take much tending. Hedges were thinned for firewood during breaks in the rain. There was plenty of time for reading. A few writing commissions came. Trips were made to town, to Luke Henry’s bar, to the Thursday market across the border in Enniskillen, to the coal pits in Arigna for trailerloads of low-grade, inexpensive coal. Bill Evans was bundled up like a mummy between the wellingtons and the shiny black sou’wester hat when he came for tea and cigarettes on the way to the lake. If he was hungry he called out for food. On Thursdays he became lord of the bus. Nobody had seen Patrick Ryan for a time though the part of the country and the people he was working for were known.
The burden of putting round the winter disappeared for days in a great flare of excitement, rumour and conjecture. John Quinn had been away for less than a month in his wife’s place in Westmeath when he returned home. He had been driven out by the woman’s sons. He went there and then to the doctor, the priest, the solicitor, the guards. None of them was interested in his cause. The family was well off and respectable. The doctor examined his bruises and said his injuries weren’t serious and wrote him a prescription. The priest advised him to offer it all up as prayers and penance. The local solicitor told him he was far more likely to be sued and prosecuted than to succeed in an action if he insisted in pressing a case. They had been hardworking, decent people who had never been tainted by scandal. The guards took a statement but told him they had no intention of pressing charges as it was purely a civil matter.
The wife had gone to live with one of her sons. John Quinn’s few possessions had been dumped on the street.
In Longford he broke the journey to go to another doctor and to spend the night in the hotel. When he was leaving the next morning, he refused to settle his account and ordered them to send his bill to his solicitor. There was a serious law case pending and the solicitor would settle everything, he informed the hotel.
He went to the solicitor to try to sue his wife and was presented with the hotel bill. None of the several solicitors he approached would touch the case. Then he caused a stir in the mart by turning up to bid for several cattle, eventually buying a bull calf though his land was let on the eleven months.
“That little calf won’t be taking a bladeen of grass away from the decent man that’s looking after the land till next summer and he’ll be a little interest to myself over the winter now that I’m back again among good friend and neighbours.”
In this mill of rumour and conjecture John Quinn was not slow to speak for himself. He walked into Luke Henry’s bar when it was full at the end of a late-night Saturday shopping and stood at the counter, a wronged man nursing a careful bottle of stout, declaring how happy he was to be back again among good neighbours.
“I have put the whole matter in the hands of my solicitor and am expecting proper redress through the courts,” he said to anybody who would listen. “In the meantime I have taken to writing ladies again. This time we can have no blessing of church but we’ll have our own blessing and the blessing of good neighbours which may turn out even luckier.”
Some managed to remain wonderfully straight-faced. Others assured him how glad they were to see him home and that he shouldn’t blame himself in any respect whatsoever. Nobody in the wide world could have done more or tried harder to rescue what turned out to be a sinking ship. In fact, when everything was considered fully and turned over, he had been a veritable martyr to the cause. Extending out from John Quinn, the net of hypocrisy and lies had become as consistent as truth, encircling him.
Johnny wrote that he completely understood what a bad move it would be for him to think of coming home. He had been in a low mood when he wrote and was thinking of writing back to them even before he got their letter. In the short time since then everything had more or less fallen into place and was now completely alphabetical. When he told Mister Singh that Ford had made him redundant and he would have to look for a cheaper room or move to another part of London where light work was obtainable, Mister Singh wouldn’t hear. Recently Mister Singh had bought a terrace of Victorian houses overlooking the Heath that ran into Epping Forest and was turning them into apartments for professional and business people—doctors, nurses, accountants, secretaries, a different class entirely to the Fusiliers.
Johnny was to be a sort of porter or Mister Singh’s stand-in. He would keep the stairs and landings polished and clean and he would do light repairs when anything went wrong in the apartments. In return, he would have a small weekly wage and a rent-free flat in the basement. When he totted it all up one evening before going out to the Prince of Wales, he reckoned he would be better off money-wise at the end of the week than he was in the very best days on the line at Ford’s. He was staying put until he went up as
per usual to the Connors in Birmingham for Christmas and was then moving to Leytonstone as soon as he got back after the Christmas. Everything seemed to have worked out perfectically alphabetical.
“It couldn’t have been planned better,” Ruttledge said as he handed back the letter. It was written with care and it brought a small world to life.
“It’s great,” Mary said, her eyes gleaming. “He fell on his feet. The poor fella deserved some bit of luck in England.”
“That letter you wrote worked,” Jamesie said.
“It worked powerfully,” Mary said. “It couldn’t have worked any better.”
“Johnny thinks the world of Mister Singh,” Jamesie said. “And Mister Singh stood by him in the end.”
For many years now, Jim had been pressing his parents to come and spend Christmas in Dublin.
“He’d look nice in Dublin,” Mary used to joke.
“There’d be much worse there already,” Jamesie would counter happily. “You don’t have to worry.”
After many hesitations and changes of mind, Jamesie and Mary decided to go to Dublin for Christmas. The Ruttledges would look after the animals and the place while they were away. The letter they received from Johnny was decisive in their going.
The gaiety of spirit grew as Christmas approached. Holly with rich red berries and trailing ivy was picked from the hedges to decorate rooms. Nets of many-coloured small electric lights were draped over Christmas trees and winked from porches. Mary made a plum pudding and baked a Christmas cake to take to Dublin.
At the Saturday market, Jamesie examined crates of live turkeys and finally bought a pair, a small turkey to give as a Christmas present to the Ruttledges and a huge bird to take to Dublin. In return, the Ruttledges gave a bottle of eighteen-year-old White Powers they got from a bar in Enniskillen, a leftover from the time when prosperous bars matured and bottled their own whiskey. The dark whiskey had a slight taste of port from the cask and looked beautiful in the clear glass of the unlabelled bottle.
In the town a great-lighted crib was erected outside the church. The shops were all bright with lights and holly and streamers and tinsel. Alone among all the bars and shops Jimmy Joe McKiernan flew a tricolour in a two-fingered salute to the two detectives across the road in the alleyway—or to the town in general, which was so complacently celebrating Christmas, with the business of the country still unfinished.
In the little square near the cattle mart and shallow river the market traders erected their stalls around the statue of the harpist. In the evenings, with the street lamps on and the shops bustling and busy, it was moving to watch the families traipsing between the windows, the children in the shadow of their parents, stopping every so often to meet and greet friends and neighbours.
All the bars had a lighted Christmas tree and holly and looped strings of tinsel. Pages were pinned up beside the dart boards, on which lines could be purchased for the Christmas raffle, with prizes of a goose and a turkey, hampers of ham and whiskey and port and gin. Regular customers were served a Christmas round of drinks on the house. In all this feast of Christmas there were some shops that were almost empty, the assistants or owners looking out on the busy street to the passers-by who were all shopping elsewhere; and there were people wandering the town who had no people to meet, who did not want to be alone and were not noticed.
Ruttledge left Jamesie and Mary to the early morning train. They were going to Dublin for the whole week of Christmas. Though he arrived early at the house they were already waiting, their suitcases and parcels on the doorsteps, the two dogs crying in their house, the key in the outside of the door ready to be locked, the brown hens shut in their house within the netting wire.
“Put yourselves to no trouble,” Jamesie raised his hand in a gesture that meant Ruttledge was free to do whatever he wanted to do about the place while they were absent.
Among all the bags and parcels on their doorstep there was only one medium-sized suitcase with their own belongings and clothes. Everything else was presents, the plucked turkey, the plum pudding, even the rare bottle of White Powers.
“We’ll taste it in Dublin. Too good for us. No good for us here on our own.”
Since they went to Dublin for their son’s wedding seventeen years ago, a single night hadn’t been spent away from the house. There was about them a spiritual quality, as if they were going forth as supplicants or communicants rather than to the small diesel train that would take them to Dublin in a couple of hours.
“The poor fellas,” Mary said of the protesting dogs as they drove away. “They don’t like to be closed in. They know full well that something is happening.” Then she withdrew into herself, but Jamesie named every house they passed, not with his usual fierce interest but as if it were a recitation of prayer, until it began to irritate Mary. “You’d think it was to America he was going.”
“Or to heaven,” Ruttledge said.
“Much more likely the other place.”
After getting the tickets they waited with the rest of the passengers on the white gravel of the platform though the potbellied stove in the waiting room was red. There was a lighted Christmas tree in the opposite corner. Not many people were going to Dublin. They could see down a whole mile of track. In a field across the tracks an old horse and a few cows were eating hay together.
“Have you heard from Johnny?” Ruttledge asked as they waited.
“We had a card,” Mary said. “The poor fella even put in a note for us to have a Christmas drink on him.”
“He’s away to Birmingham to the Connors,” Jamesie said. “He’s in great fettle. After Christmas he takes up in his new place.”
“Will Patrick Ryan stay away or will he be home at Christmas?”
“He’ll be home,” Jamesie answered with total confidence. “On Christmas day he goes to the Harneys in Boyle. They come for him in a car. They’re cousins but I hear they are sick enough of the whole performance. Every Christmas starts off all right but then he has to try to put the whole house under him. That’s Patrick.”
“They’ll come for him all the same,” Mary said sharply.
“They’ll come. It’s just one day. They’re not going to stop now.”
“I might wander up to the house to see how he is or if he’s there,” Ruttledge said.
“You’ll see a choice house if you do,” Mary said. For the first time that morning she laughed. “All modern comforts and appliances.”
The signal fell at the end of the platform and the snub nose of the little diesel train came into view far down the tracks. The young stationmaster locked the ticket office and walked down the platform towards the signal box. He was carrying a white hoop and nodded and smiled at the passengers he knew.
“He didn’t even notice us,” Jamesie joked to hide his excitement, all his attention was fixed on the approaching train.
The train drew in, and with a few nervous words they were gone.
On Christmas Eve, Kate had some last-minute shopping. Ruttledge said he would go with her to the town and call on the Shah. It was late. He dropped her under the tricolour flying over Jimmy Joe McKiernan’s and drove slowly through the stars and crowns and trees and streamers and the chaotic parking of the town. The crib was floodlit on the steps of the church and the windows were ablaze with light for Midnight Mass. For this night anyhow, its modern ugliness had disappeared and it resembled a great lighted ship set to sail out of the solid middle of the town into all that surrounds our life. There was a white star above the entrance of the Central Hotel encircled by beads of coloured lights. When he reached the Shah’s domain, suddenly all was in darkness except for the street lamps. The scrapyard and big sheds were closed and there wasn’t a light or Christmas decoration in sight. The big light above the door of the station house was on and the light of televisions came through the windows of the cottages. As he approached the station house, the door suddenly opened and was held open while his uncle said goodbye to Father Conroy. When the door closed, t
he priest and Ruttledge stood face to face.
“This is a surprise,” Ruttledge said as they shook hands.
“There’s nothing wrong,” the priest said. “Every Christmas I come to the house to hear his Confession. We must be doing it for four or five years now.”
“You gave him Absolution?”
“And Communion,” the priest responded with equal lightness. “You’ll find him white as the driven snow.”
“A happy Christmas.”
“Many happy returns.”
When Ruttledge rang the bell, his uncle was plainly surprised to have a second caller and didn’t open the door until he recognized the voice.
“You’re some boy hauling our poor priest in from the country to hear your Confession instead of going down to the church like everybody else,” Ruttledge said.
“You met the man,” he responded defensively. “By all accounts you don’t bother him too much yourself.”
“The man is overworked with people like you.”
“That’ll do you now,” he began to shake with laughter. “It’s more than you do anyhow and that poor man you met going out needs a lock of pounds from time to time like everybody else.” He was enjoying the display of the power that could draw the priest to his house for an individual Confession. He wanted Ruttledge to delay. He swung open his liquor cabinet to display a formidable array of bottles. “You might as well have something now that it’s Christmas.”
Ruttledge shook his head. “Kate will be waiting. I just dropped in to say we’ll not be eating till around four tomorrow. But come out whenever suits you. We’ll be there all along.”
“Will it be all right to bring Himself?” he indicated the sheepdog stretched in front of the hot fire.
“Of course. Doesn’t he come every Christmas?”
The dog rose from the fire and looking first at his master trotted over to Ruttledge to be petted.
“He knows. He makes no mistake, I’m telling you. He knows,” he said triumphantly.