After the Lockout

by Darran McCann

  ‘What exactly were his words, Mrs Geraghty?’ Father Daly put in. ‘The detail could be important.’

  ‘The tenor is fairly clear, Tim,’ Stanislaus said impatiently.

  ‘Sometimes people get called socialists but they only want to help the poor. Sometimes they’re not as opposed to the Church as they seem. Or even think themselves to be.’

  ‘The objective of the Church is to save souls for Christ,’ Stanislaus snapped.

  ‘Of course, but a lot of souls will be lost if we refuse to adapt to the realities of the modern world,’ said the young man.

  Stanislaus sighed. He felt like beating the liberal fool around the head with his Rerum Novarum. He turned back to Mrs Geraghty. ‘How did the people react?’ he asked darkly.

  ‘I’d say maybe half the people walked out.’

  ‘And the other half?’

  ‘God forgive them, they cheered.’

  Mrs Geraghty returned to the sink. Stanislaus dabbed his napkin against his lips. Father Daly, seemingly unsure whether to speak or return to his newspaper, sat silently like an idiot. What on earth was the matter with the young man, that he didn’t grasp the scale of the challenge before them? Half the parish had cheered on a radical who had denounced the Church. Half the parish, and on the Church’s very own property! ‘Where do you suppose the young hero stayed last night?’ Stanislaus said.

  ‘Charlie Quinn’s perhaps? Or Moriarty’s? It would be understandable if Victor wanted to wait till morning before going to see Pius.’

  ‘Yes, that’s surely what happened,’ said Mrs Geraghty.

  It was plausible. The Moriartys lived at the other end of the village, and if the people were split, the Moriartys were sure to be on the wrong side. Charlie Quinn was more difficult to judge. He and the Victor fellow were close friends, but, on the other hand, Charlie was a good, solid boy.

  ‘Who was he dancing with?’

  ‘Pardon me, Father?’ said Mrs Geraghty.

  ‘With whom did Victor Lennon dance?’

  ‘I only saw him dancing with two girls. Margaret Cavanagh was one. And when I left he was dancing with Ida Harte. They were both drunk at that stage. Now, Margaret Cavanagh is a respectable girl but as for that other one, well …’

  Stanislaus raised a hand to silence Mrs Geraghty. ‘You must not be so uncharitable to the Harte family,’ he said.

  But Mrs Geraghty was not finished. ‘Who are these Harte people anyway? Why have they moved here, where nobody knows them?’ she said. The Hartes had taken over Dan McCusker’s land a couple of years previously, after Dan had finally met a bottle that finished him before he finished it. They were the first family without local connections to have arrived in Madden in living memory, and people didn’t like it.

  ‘They’re from County Monaghan. I’m from County Monaghan. It’s not even ten miles to the county border,’ said Father Daly.

  ‘It’s thirty mile or more to where they’re from. And you’re here to do the blessed work of the Church, Father. Why would they move thirty mile from their home place? They must be running away from something, that’s why. You look at that Ida one. She’s the sort that would get into trouble all right.’

  ‘Mrs Geraghty, that’s enough!’ Stanislaus cried, with a vehemence that fairly blasted the housekeeper from her rhythm. Visibly chastened, she fled the kitchen.

  Stanislaus was not interested in the fact that Victor had been dancing with Ida Harte. She had neither friends nor significant family connections. In fact, Stanislaus was offended by the naked prejudice with which so many of his parishioners treated the Harte family; the dark, swirling rumours that they were gypsies, travellers, tinkers, just generally not long off the road, themmuns. On the rare occasions when the wicked assumption was challenged, just look at them would be the answer. They did look wild, it was true: Ted Harte was a hairy, ruddy fellow with broad shoulders and hands like cudgels; his wife Martha had straggly hair all down her back. They were old and though they had many grown-up children scattered around, only their youngest daughter had come with them when they moved to Madden. The reasons why the family might have split up this way were much-speculated. But it was poor Ida that suffered the worst slanders of the poisoned tongues. Many of the matronly ladies who backboned his parish believed, absurdly, that she had designs on their husbands, and Stanislaus knew they would have been scandalised at the sight of Victor dancing with her. Yet Stanislaus found himself oddly fond of Ida. She was as he imagined women had been back in the thirties: without reticence or propriety, certainly, but neither charmless nor irredeemable. In one of the few memories he had of his mother, he saw her laughing lustily as some nameless hag affectionately told her she was as a meabhar, clean off her head.

  Margaret Cavanagh was another matter. He would have to keep an eye on her. The late Dr Cavanagh had given his eldest daughter extensive home-schooling, quite separate from the curriculum of needlework, singing, reading and arithmetic offered at the National School, and since his stroke ten years before, and later his death, Margaret had been the nearest thing to a doctor in Madden. Dr Cavanagh had been a man possessed of the most independent intellect, the Lord alone knew what he had introduced her to. She had continued her self-education after her father’s incapacitation, something Stanislaus viewed as akin to swimming out to sea without hope of safe return. Recklessly cultivated intellects were often resistant to the higher truths of which the Church was guardian. She and Victor were around the same age and must have known each other growing up. They were, in the narrow context of the parish, of roughly equivalent social standing. The doctor’s daughter, the rich man’s son. Perhaps there had been an attraction. Perhaps there had been more than an attraction. Hadn’t she, after all, spurned several perfectly presentable suitors? Previously Stanislaus had seen this as dedication to her younger siblings – any husband would be within his rights to send them away, even if it meant the orphanage or the workhouse – but now he wondered whether Miss Cavanagh had remained needlessly unmarried for other reasons. Miss Cavanagh was the schoolteacher, and education was a dangerous thing if not applied correctly. Perhaps behind a blameless exterior there lurked independent notions, dangerous to the parish’s most impressionable minds. Yes, he would have to keep an eye on Miss Cavanagh.

  You’re comfortable on the straw, considering your bruises. You lie looking out the open window of the shed at the clear sky. The heavy rain earlier has purged the atmosphere, and the stars are a hundred thousand pinholes in the cloudless curtain of night. The metaphor of the stars representing the departed is too commonplace for you not to think of Mam. You pick a faint, light-blue glimmer beside the North Star. Not the North Star itself, the one next to it, twinkling from some unfathomable distance. That’s her.

  A lantern approaches. You sit up in the straw. It’s not cold but Maggie shivers in her shawl. Without a word she kneels beside you and you reach for her. Your lips lock savagely, directly, violently. You move her onto her back, into your little straw bed, ignoring your aching ribs, and you grope stupidly at the cords attaching her stockings to her girdle. ‘Let me,’ she says as she helps you undo the knot. She lifts her hips from the straw and slips off the garment. You undo the buttons on your union suit, and as you make love, she holds you in her arms. Protecting you. Cherishing you. You hold each other all night.

  ‘You have my heart, Victor. Take care with it,’ she says as she slips away with the dawn.

  A cock wakes me. Inside my head a demon drummer thumps a painful rhythm. I’m in a large shed. God knows which. My back and legs itch against the hay that has been my bed and a thick old blanket is draped across me, keeping my naked body warm. My naked body, and the other one with which I’m entwined. I don’t dare breathe let alone move. My suitcase is lying upside-down near the door. My uniform and my boots and my pants are strewn around the place. So too are the clothes of a woman. My first thought is of Maggie. But this isn’t Maggie.

  I think back. What time did the céilí end? Late anyway. I�
�d had a lot of poteen, but I do seem to remember talking to someone. TP McGahan, that’s who, about politics. People were gathered around to listen. It was coming back to me. An interview for the paper. Not the best idea I ever had. Should be keeping a low profile. We talked about capital and labour and the exploitation of the working class. And religion. Oh yes, and religion. Cardinal Logue came up. Benedict might’ve got a touch too. People clapped. Some of them anyway. Sean Moriarty said I should be the first President of the Irish Republic because I had the sand to come out and say what needed to be said.

  The woman’s face is buried in my chest and thick hair is spread across it like black ivy. Damned if I can remember her name. Her body is a hot coal against mine. The wild one with the poteen. Dead ringer for Theda Bara. After the céilí Charlie tried to drag me to his house but I wanted more poteen and this girl had it. I remember Charlie and Turlough telling me I shouldn’t be anywhere near her. They weren’t at all diplomatic about it. Maggie must never ever know about this. Slowly, gingerly, I slip out from under the blanket. She stirs and sits up, her hair splayed in all directions. She smiles and I freeze. My clothes are just out of reach and I stand naked in the chilly morning air.

  ‘Hello, soldier,’ she says, a laugh woven into her odious voice. ‘Looks like you’re ready to go once more unto the breach.’ I’m standing stiff as a beefeater. Mortified. Her opal eyes gleam. I pull on my trousers clumsily. I should say something.

  ‘Once more unto the breach. You know Shakespeare?’

  ‘I knew a man one time used to come out with all that shite.’

  I button my shirt and summon the courage to look straight at her. There’s a little roll in her eyes, as if they’re not quite fixed properly in her head. She reaches out from under the blanket to her frock, rumpled and discarded on the ground, and takes out a packet of Gallaher’s. She lights one and offers it to me. My head is thumping and my mouth is like a sewer, so I’m grateful for it. The first drag makes me feel a little better. ‘I had a fine old time last night, Victor. A fine old time. You don’t have to rush away so soon, do you? Pius won’t even be awake yet. You know how he likes to sleep in.’

  I keep dressing in silence.

  ‘It’s Ida, by the way.’

  ‘I knew that. Of course I knew that.’

  ‘Of course you did.’

  I do up my top button and lift my suitcase. I suppose I have to say something before I can walk out. ‘Ida, I don’t remember much about what happened but I suppose something … something of a physical nature has taken place between us. I’d just like to apologise for letting things get out of hand.’

  She knows what I’m saying and I’m grateful she doesn’t make me say it. They usually do, women. They push you all the way. As if they actually want to hear you say I wanted you last night but I don’t want you now. And then you’re the devil for saying such a thing. Why is that so terrible anyway? There was a snooty south-side girl I knew one time who said I was only after one thing, and it was true, but so was she. She wanted a husband. I only wanted her for one night, she wanted me for a lifetime; but I was the selfish one? Ida drags long and deep from her cigarette, exhales down her nostrils, runs her tongue along her lips. They’re red as rosebuds. ‘You love the schoolteacher,’ she says.

  ‘Ida, promise me you won’t tell anyone about this.’

  She gets up, lets the blanket fall to the ground, and she stands naked, shockingly, offensively naked in the morning chill, the shape of a cello, brazen as sin. Colour comes to her milky skin for the first time: murderous purple. She spits but it falls short at my feet. She lifts one of my boots and flings it at me. ‘Victor fucking Lennon, the big fucken socialist hero, is too much of a snob to be seen with me, isn’t that right?’ she shrieks. ‘Get out of here, you miserable bastard.’ Happy to comply. I run out the door and out of earshot quick as I can.

  Back outside again, I discover that Ida lives in the last house in the row at the top of the town; the end houses have bigger yards than the others and large sheds beside them. I have to walk past nearly every door in Madden, and I hope to God nobody sees me. Beside Ida’s is Quinn’s General Stores, Charlie’s business and home. Directly across the street from Ida’s is Moriarty’s. Next to Moriarty’s is the National School but it’s not open yet. It’s still very early, few people will be up, thank God. There won’t have been anyone there late last night either. Nausea rises up in me at the thought of meeting Maggie now. Is there anything incriminating about my appearance? The suitcase and uniform show I haven’t been home, but that doesn’t prove anything.

  As I walk down the muddy street between the houses, breathing deep, with each step I feel better. Nobody knows how I marked my first night home. The only ones who might are the lads, and I don’t mind them knowing. Turlough and Sean are men of the world. So is Charlie. He’s been in the war, for God’s sake. Even if they do know anything, they’ll keep their mouths shut. Deep breaths. I’d forgotten what the air without smog tastes like. I know I should be ashamed but I’m not. As long as no-one finds out, I’ve no regrets. My hurried clip slows to a stroll and I take the old place in. It hasn’t changed. Only the red flags and bunting hung out in my honour tell me it isn’t nineteen-ought-seven any more. But it feels different all the same. That’s perspective, I suppose. I try and remember the names of the families who live behind each door as I pass by. Sweeney. The Fenian Roche. Kelly the gambler. Vallely. McCabe. Campbell. O’Kane. The other Murphys. McCann the baker. McKenna. Gamble. Johnny Morrissey the drunk. Murphy. McDonagh the tinker. McGrath’s post office. My mother used to remark on how the paint had been flaking off that door for years (‘You’d think Sheila McGrath would get him to do something about it, it’s showing up the whole street’) and it seemed Jerry had finally gotten around to painting it a nice, bright red. Gallagher’s, with the window that was always slightly open because Mrs Gallagher was forever complaining of being too warm, whether rain or shine, summer or winter, night or day. TP McGahan. Kate and John McDermott. I’m pleased with myself that I still know them all. I’m near the chapel, with its neatly tended graveyard and its limestone steeple spiralling skywards. Directly across is the Parochial Hall. Its doors are shut now: three inches of mahogany with straps and hinges of wrought iron. You have to respect doors like that. And sitting in front of them, staring at me from the Parochial Hall steps, is Benedict.

  He’s pretending to tie his shoelaces but I’m not fooled. I say hello as sweetly as I can and walk quickly past him. He’ll wonder what I’m doing up and about at this hour, still in last night’s clothes. None of his damn business. I feel his eyes on my back as I pass the barren, stony Poor Ground, and follow the road as it swings left at the top of the village, past the Parochial House, which stands at the bend. That high-ceilinged palace, with the front door, black and expensive like a Merrion Square door, with a big brass knocker that can be heard from down the street. Above the door is the high window of the priests’ study where they sit, watching. When I was a child I believed the priest could see everything that happened in the parish from that window. Even secret things behind closed doors. Even as I got older and started to know better, when I would touch myself or sneak a drink or read a book I wasn’t supposed to, it was hard to shake the thought that somehow, the priest knew.

  I continue up the road a quarter mile till I reach the laneway from the road up to our house. It is overgrown so I pull out a long hazel wand from the bushes to start to hack my way through. It’s an overreaction, the lane is not nearly so bad that it’s actually impassable, but it has been neglected to the point where a dramatic gesture seems necessary. And the hazel wand makes a pleasing whooshing sound as I whip it through the air. A country boy knows the value of a good stick, and I haven’t been a country boy in a long time.

  I reach the yard at the top of the lane and see that the old place is worse than I’d feared. Nettles and thistles stand waist-high through the concrete. The house and outbuildings look like they’re crumbling, with huge
clumps of whitewash fallen from the walls and strewn around like debris. The paint on the doors and eaves is flaked away to nothing and the spars spike up through the threadbare thatch. In the byre, two cows stand ankle-deep in shite, lowing madly. I wonder if those two head of cattle are all are that are left. Beyond the house I glimpse a fraction of our land and see how the foliage has grown thick and wild with briars. The whole six hundred and twenty-seven acres will surely be as bad. I knock on the door. No answer. I open the latch. It’s dark and damp and cold inside. A gust of wind hisses past as I enter. Everything here speaks of abandonment.

  ‘Pius. Pius. It’s Victor. Are you here?’ I light a match and search in the back rooms. They’re so quiet. I’ve only ever known them noisy. We used to sleep four to a bed but the beds are empty and they haven’t been slept in for a long time. It’s like the end of the world. I go back to the parlour and call out once more. The windows are shuttered but there’s enough light to reveal the grimy mustiness of the place. Bottles are strewn across the table, the chairs, the dresser, the floor. Some are empty, some half-empty. The hearth is an unmaintained mound of ash. Shotgun cartridges are scattered about the floor. The smell of the damp wracking the walls is nauseating and there’s a profound cold in the room, like the walls themselves have forgotten they were ever warm. I open the curtains. Light splashes in and illuminates the horror. An empty poteen bottle and tumbler lie sideways on the floor behind the couch, and beside them is an apparently lifeless old man.

  ‘Pius! Pius, wake up!’

  I lift his limp body by the oxters, drag him onto the couch and slap him in the face. Nothing. I run outside and lower the bucket into the well. Back in the house, I fill the empty whiskey tumbler and pour the water over his lips. ‘Come on now, Pius.’ He splutters and coughs and jolts. At last he blinks, opens his eyes, blinks again like he doesn’t trust what his eyes are seeing, and holds his hand over his face. He groans. He takes the water and gulps it voraciously.