Tarry Flynn

by Patrick Kavanagh

  He was wrestling with his wife for possession of the graip.

  ‘The graip ’ill only give him the chance to let your guts out, Joe.’

  ‘By the sweet and living God he’s not going to cut my bushes, Maggie. By the living God I’ll…’

  ‘Joe –’

  The wild man appeared at the top of the potato field in his shirt and trousers and clutching his cap in his hand. He raced diagonally down and across the potato drills stumbling among the stalks in the hollow and bawling ‘bleddy foreigners’ as he ran. He slowed down as he came along the level ground and stopped shouting, but now his face was fierce with a helpless hate. Tarry was afraid.

  Joe walked along the hedge, panting, trying to swallow some of the hate that was choking his words. In the end he said in a low poisonous whisper: ‘Flynn, I’ll get you, I‘ll get you.’

  These words were ordinary enough but they carried a heavy load of danger. Tarry trimmed away at weeds and briars as quietly as he could to keep the continuity of his legality.

  The man on the other side of the hedge came up from the depths of his silent fury:

  ‘What the hell do you mane, Flynn?’

  Tarry did not reply.

  Joe walked a short distance away and examined a bush which Tarry had cut. ‘Oh, you hure you, you hure, you, Flynn, and that’s what every one belonging to you were. The good big bush!’

  Now the man was shouting at the top of his voice. He pranced on the headland and made a dash as if to jump through the hedge, but fell back nursing his skin where it had been scratched.

  ‘If you come out here,’ said Tarry softly, ‘I may as well tell you, Finnegan, that I’ll cut the head off you. Do you hear that?’

  Immediately the man had rushed through a gap and went for Tarry. As he rushed at him Tarry, who had studied a book on boxing, dropped the bill-hook and rammed out his left arm in Joe’s general direction, half hoping that it would miss him, for he would give a good deal to be able to avoid a fight.

  To Tarry’s surprise the punch connected with the man’s right eyebrow, cutting it right open. The blood streamed down Joe’s face. To avoid further fighting Tarry tried to grapple with his opponent and when he did so he was surprised to find that this man who had such a reputation as a filler of dung and a carrier of thirty-stone sacks of wheat, was as weak as a cat.

  Joe tried to scratch Tarry’s face and what was worse than all he tried to give him the boot in the belly. To lift the boot to an opponent was considered the meanest of all, and any man who did so in a public squabble would be set upon by the rest of the crowd. Next he tried to pick a large stone off the ground but Tarry shoved him away.

  Tarry knew now that he could easily beat Joe, but his faith in physical force was weakening and he wished he could scrape out of the argument in some easy way. In fact, although he was winning, he had a strong inclination to run. The blood on the man’s face was now running down his shirt front, frightening him more than it did Joe.

  Joe looked like a man who was refusing to believe that he, a man who had played football for the parish team and who had the reputation of being the toughest man in the team, could be bested by this – nobody of a Flynn. He fell to the ground but struggled to his feet quickly. He was surviving by the memory of his greatness. With victory so easily won Tarry’s fear of the talk that would be about the fight among the neighbours, as well as of the chance it would give people to draw attention to a land dispute that was going on over the farm, produced in him again the desire to run.

  He did run right to the end of the field where the old ruins were and expected Joe to follow. But Joe did not follow. Tarry laid the tools across his knees as he sat down on a mossy boulder in the middle of what had once been the kitchen of a cabin and watched Joe in the hollow rubbing with the lining of his cap the blood away.

  During this period the wife appeared on the scene coming in a state of terror across the potato drills.

  ‘Joe, what happened to you?’

  Joe was now rubbing the back of his head. Would it be possible that the man got injured when he fell? Tarry tried to daydream that the row had never taken place. He tried to place himself back in the past and then forward in the future when there would be no more about the whole business. He was nervous. He wondered what he would say to his mother. He also knew that the unreason of the Finnegans would not let the matter drop; from now on his life would be in danger wherever he went – in pub or fair or at the cross-roads. The Finnegans were like wild animals. If Tarry had only one first cousin atself, he thought, he would be safe enough; but he had not a single relation to back him up.

  Oh, as sure as his name was Tarry Flynn a week would not pass before he had heard more about this fight.

  Maggy Finnegan led her husband away round the headland, for it seemed that he was too weak to walk through the potatoes.

  From the legal point of view Tarry felt that he was safe enough. After all the man had no business coming on to his side of the hedge. And there was blood on the stones to prove it.

  ‘The hard man, the hard man.’

  Tarry shifted round on the stone and was face to face with Eusebius who had a spade on his shoulder. ‘I’m just going to put in a lock of cabbage where the turnips missed, ‘he explained,’ and I thought I saw you down here. You‘re fencing?’

  ‘Sticking a few bushes in gaps, Eusebius.’

  ‘A good bleddy idea.’ Eusebius looked in the direction of the battle scene. ‘A lot of gaps in that hedge all right – but as the fella said, you have plenty of good strong bushes to do the job. See any women lately?’

  Tarry, glad of the chance to keep the subject away from his nerves, entered into the spirit of the sentimental lead, but his enthusiasm was very forced.

  ‘I was talking to May Callan last night.’

  ‘I see,’ said Eusebius as if he had heard something very special. ‘Had she any stir?’

  ‘If you knew but all!’ said Tarry, making mystery.

  ‘Jabus.’

  ‘Charlie followed her from the cross the other evening when she was coming home and tried his best to get her to come out to Kerley’s hayfield with him. What do you think of that?’

  ‘Aw, you’re a liar?’

  Tarry could not fail to observe that Eusebius’ attention was not all on the conversation; it was only an excuse to hear all about the row. But Tarry would tell him nothing.

  ‘Begod, Charlie’s a quare hawk,’ he said without interest, for he was then staring analytically in the direction of Finnegan’s house.

  ‘I’d say he was a bad egg,’ Tarry offered.

  ‘Oh, the worst –’

  ‘What are you watching, Eusebius?’

  ‘There’s a few gaps down there you’d need to stick bushes in, Tarry. If your cattle broke into the spuds after they‘re sprayed it wouldn’t do them any good. Right pack of savages, them Finnegans, aren’t they?’

  ‘They’re as good as anybody else, Eusebius, if I know anything. Do you ever be up there at all, Eusebius?’

  ‘Do you know, Tarry, I was up with them this morning,’ said Eusebius as if admitting something awful. ‘Joe borrowed me rope-twister last year and it was as much as he’d give it back when I went for it. That Joe hates me, hates the ground I walk on. There’s the oul’ one now coming along the lane. Must be going somewhere. She’s dressed.’

  ‘God knows where she’s going,’ said Tarry with great indifference in a tone of deep weariness.

  ‘She has her hat on,’ remarked Eusebius.

  Tarry was worried. Had he injured Joe seriously? The wife was either going for the police or the doctor or both, he feared, but he did not let Eusebius see his mind. It would be best now for him to leave the fence as it was, in case the police might be coming. So he didn’t return to the hedge.

  They saw Mrs Finnegan go towards the village by way of the Mass path across the hills. Eusebius took a sudden notion to go back home for something he forgot. Tarry guessed that he was in a hurry home to
tell his mother the good news that there had been a terrific row between Tarry Flynn and Joe Finnegan. It was plain to Tarry now that Eusebius had heard and maybe seen the row from beginning to end. He left Finnegan‘s, Tarry remembered, by the front way and had come around by the front of Carlin’s and then appeared on the scene as if by accident.

  Tarry stood in the ruins for a few minutes, walking through the nettles and docks and picking at the old mortar near the chimney – in the hope that there might be a secret hoard left there by long-dead misers. Of course he knew that such a hoard was most unlikely, but the idea fed his day-dream of getting very rich. If he could suddenly get rich all his troubles would be solved.

  The thought that he had a sack of oats hidden in the old hay in the open shed in the haggard began to get on his conscience. He had been looking forward to selling that sack and having a roughness of money to spend but now such double-dealing seemed unfair to his mother in the battle which she was putting up against the world of Drumnay.

  As soon as he went home he promised himself that he’d leave that sack of oats back on the loft.

  He put the fork and bill-hook on his shoulder and made for home by the back of Callan’s hills where they ran down to the bottom of Petey Meegan’s garden where the flax-pit separated Drumnay from Miskin. He needed some moral support and even though Petey was a poor sort of man to have as support, the fact that he had had – and probably still had – a notion of Tarry’s sister brought him closer to him than a complete stranger.

  The padlock and chain which secured the door of Petey’s dwelling were lying on the window-sill, but Petey was out. Tarry was surprised that the careful and suspicious old bachelor who had reached that particular stage of bachelor queerness that he thought everyone was trying to steal from him should have gone off without locking the door. He was probably not far away, possibly in the field. He looked in the window at the kitchen. A pair of yellow boots hung by their laces on the far wall; a rake stood against the dresser, but for all that Petey’s kitchen was in comparatively good order. Tarry noted that it had a good concrete floor and that there was an excellent clock on the mantle-board. He wouldn‘t be the worst take for a girl, and he would be a useful man to have as a relation, so near at hand if a cow was stuck in a bog hole or anything like that. He whistled to announce his presence, and he was gone off and across the drain and was making up the hill towards the top of the green road when he heard Petey’s short cough at the door of his house. So he returned to get some consolation and advice.

  Petey wasn’t too pleased when he heard the story. Joe was his third cousin.

  ‘He’s a very thick man,’ said Tarry.

  ‘He’s a hasty man,’ said Petey, ‘but I wouldn’t say he’s a thick man.’

  ‘I didn’t hurt him very badly anyway. Are you coming over this evening, Petey?’

  It seemed that Petey had changed his mind. ‘I might and I mightn’t,’ said he.

  ‘Well, you’ll be welcome, Petey.’

  ‘Indeed, I know that,’ he said as if he thought himself the most eligible bachelor in the country.

  Tarry left him feeling small enough. As he went up the rushy hill he turned east and could see someone walking about the spot where the row had taken place. It was Joe.

  Did he leave something behind him when he fell? Tarry watched and saw the man go backwards and forwards through the gap. He had a mind to sneak back to see what the man was doing, but he had other things on his mind.

  Smoke was rising from Carlin’s house; they were getting up. One way of saving a meal.

  Tarry gave a last glance towards the place of the battle and there was Joe Finnegan still mooching around like a man who had lost a shilling in the grass. It could be that he was trying to destroy the evidence but if he were he would only make the real truth more obvious. Tarry walked down the hill to his home partly satisfied that he had done his best.

  ‘What in the Name of God way did you come home?’ cried his mother who was spreading shirts on the line in the front garden. ‘I sent Aggie up to see how you were getting on and she came back to tell me that hilt or hair of you wasn’t to be seen, and that the devil the damn the fence you did.’ She was disappointed and disgusted with her son.

  ‘But wait till you hear,’ he appealed.

  ‘Sure, God and His Blessed Mother knows that I’m waiting and I‘m waiting and you’re the same as ever you were. No care about anything only the curse-o‘-God books.’

  ‘I suppose she didn’t tell you that I was attacked by Joe Finnegan and very nearly killed. She didn‘t tell you that, but she could tell you that I didn’t bush the gaps.’

  ‘Arra, what?’

  He left the tools against the wall of the cart-house with an air of self-pitying pleasure. ‘Only the way I took him it might be a different story,’ he said, looking for sympathy.

  ‘The Lord look down on us anyway. And may the devil thrapple that big-mouthed Joe that – that it’s no wonder he hasn‘t a man child about his place. Could he have better luck with his five pratie-washers? And the devil a son ever he’ll have. What did he say?’

  ‘It’s not what he said, it’s what he did or tried to do. Came down rushing at me like a mad bull with the graip in his hand –’

  ‘Lord bless us, the graip. Bad luck to him. And –’

  ‘He came through the hedge and made at me. I had to hit him. I hit him the smallest little tip you ever saw and he fell. And that’s all.’

  Mrs Flynn rubbed her marriage ring as if looking for inspiration in it. ‘I hope you’re telling me the story right,’ she said, ‘for that man would swear a hole through a ten-gallon pot. If I had me way I’d have sent Aggie up with you and then you’d have a witness, but no – you wouldn‘t let her go with you; you were too much the big fella. That’s the kind of you. And sure, Lord God! what other man but yourself would try to steal the little grain of oats that I was keeping for the hens in the hungry summer. To think that…’

  Tarry ran away towards the haggard and his mother’s words followed him: ‘Oh, that’s you all over. You don’t want to hear the truth.’

  She followed him and found him wrestling with the sack of oats. ‘Is it trying to rupture yourself you are?’ she said. ‘Can’t you leave it there till we empty a wee lock out of it with a bucket. Lord God! to think of a man trying to leave the hens without a bit to eat in the red raw summer.’

  ‘Will you give us a breeze?’ Tarry screeched.

  But the mother was relentless: ‘And the book in the pocket! Couldn’t go up as far as Carlin’s to put a few bushes in gaps without the book.’

  ‘I tell you I had no book. I had no book. Do you hear that?’

  ‘There’s no use in talking to you, Tarry. You’re your uncle all over that the whole parish wouldn’t be able to keep in drink and squandering. Just like you he had nothing big about him but the talk. Did Maggy come out?’

  ‘No, she didn’t, she didn‘t, she didn’t,’ cried the exasperated Tarry.

  When he told her how Petey had taken the news she was still more annoyed. The wireless could not have spread the news more rapidly than the gossipers of the place. It was something to keep boredom away. Tarry could not see the funny side of it at all. Some people said it was because he did not care for anyone but himself, and his own self-critic told him that this was the reason. It is easy to see the beauty and humour of life when one is detached.

  Returning from the field where he had been filling spraying barrels with water he found his mother talking to Charlie at the gate. She had just bought two nine-months-old calves from the man and as usual asked her son how much he thought she had given for them. He, as usual, did his best to flatter the animals and his mother’s bargaining powers by putting a high value, as he imagined, on the calves. He thought she had given about eight pounds each, so he said nine.

  ‘They may let you out, Flynn,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Exactly,’ said the mother. ‘I often wonder, Charlie, that some people’s not mil
lionaires, they‘re such wonderful people for getting things for half nothing. Change them wet trousers and give us a hand to drive them up to Carlin’s. I have a nicely patched pair of trousers on the crook beside the fire.’

  ‘Like deal boards with patches,’ complained Tarry when he had put the trousers on.

  ‘They‘ll do a turn as Micky Grant said about the wife,’ said the mother.

  As they were getting ready to drive the calves up to the farm a car appeared at the mouth of the road, and as it purred slowly between the poplars they all knew that it was either a doctor or a veterinary surgeon or someone with bad news. It was Doctor McCabe, a young medical man from the town. Charlie raised his hat.

  The mother looked at her son disgusted with his manners. ‘No fear of you being like another and rising your cap to the doctor. Oh, you were too grand!’

  Charlie hadn‘t heard of the dispute with Joe Finnegan and Tarry didn’t want to tell him, knowing that he would find out soon enough.

  Passing Cassidy’s house they ran into Maggy Finnegan who was carrying a commode which she had just borrowed from Mrs Cassidy; it was an article of furniture which circulated from one sick bedroom to the other in the district.

  ‘Who the hell can be sick?’ said Charlie.

  ‘God only knows,’ sighed Tarry.

  The doctor’s car was pulled into the grass field alongside the lane leading to Carlin’s and Finnegan’s. Driving the calves past the car they saw the woman rushing ahead of them with the commode under her arm. Jemmy Carlin was standing outside his front door craning his neck in the direction of Finnegan’s.

  ‘Must be one of the Finnegans,’ remarked Charlie.

  When they came to the spot where the row had taken place all the signs of the row, blood and stones and torn clothes on the briars, were on Finnegan’s side of the gap. Charlie noticed it. ‘Must have been murder committed there,’ said he.

  Tarry would not tell Charlie the facts because he could not trust the calf-dealer and he was still hoping that the whole thing would blow over.

  In a short time they had the gaps all fenced and were contentedly walking away when they saw two well-dressed men coming down the potato field towards the hedge.