By the Lake

by John McGahern

  On Thursdays, no matter what the weather, she could not resist going out to the brow of the hill with the two dogs about the time the pony was due to turn in round the shore. She would breathe with relief as soon as the trap appeared and the pony started to gallop. She followed it all the way to the house till their dog began to bark: “That will surely wake him now if he’s not awake already. I wish all people knew their business as well as that brown pony.”

  When Jamesie teased her about going out to the brow of the hill, she was silent: she was beginning to understand that to be without anxiety was to be without love and that it could not be shared. She was content and happy that her first and older love, who had never spoken a harsh word to her in all the days of her girlhood, was safely home and sleeping off his Thursday in the big bed with the broken brass bells.

  Then the world she had left, little by little, began to disappear. On a wet soft evening in October, veils of mist and light rain obscuring the hills as well as the water, the pony trotted safely home from the Thursday outing to the town, but the life in the trap had died somewhere along the road. She had been too young to feel her mother’s death. This was her first great loss, and she was inconsolable.

  “No man had a luckier life. A good wife. Children that worked and were no trouble. Not a day sick. Then, to slip away after several glasses of White Powers after a good chat about politics with Ned Hoy, do you think the rest of us are likely to get out so easy? Can you tell me an easier way?” Jamesie tried to reason her out of her grief.

  In a year the house was closed. Her brother Tom had a girl from Kesh who had gone out to an aunt in Boston. They had been writing to one another. At Halloween he left for Boston and they were married there. He gave Mary the choice of anything she wanted from the house. She took only a few things for his sake.

  On a mild October Saturday, when the nuts were ripe on the hazel trees, the auction was held on the shore. A great crowd gathered. Everything was sold: the mowing machine, the plough, the heavy red dresser, all the cattle, the pony, the harness, the trap. She didn’t attend or even go to the brow of the hill to look across at the crowd gathered. She asked Jamesie to bid for all the brown hens and the red Shorthorn she used to milk for the house. When Jamesie arrived triumphantly home with the small cow and the crate of clucking hens, they seemed like poor scattered things from a broken world. By morning she was too busy to dwell on it any further. She was pregnant and had the house and three men to care for. The birth was difficult but she was strong and recovered quickly. The boy was christened James after his father and grandfather though Jamesie offered to name the child after Mary’s own father.

  Because of the boy and the expectancy of other children, it was decided to add an extra room to the house. Patrick Ryan was starting to build at the time and was as much around the place during the building as the men who lived in the house. Johnny and he were acting in plays at the time and often acted out their parts as they worked.

  The Ruttledges felt that the spirit of that roofless house by the water’s edge had never died but simply moved to the other house across the lake they were walking towards. From the lake gate they climbed to the brow of the hill. From there the pass ran along a low mossy bank down to the house in its ragged shelter of trees, alder mostly, lilac and a few ash, none of them large. The sheepdog and red terrier, Ruff and Bobby, met them at the second iron gate, barking fiercely; but when they spoke the dogs wagged and nosed their recognition and escorted them down to the house. The brown hens were behind the netting wire. There were many flowers, nasturtiums, sweet williams, lilies, climbing roses. The wall of the house and outhouses had been freshly whitewashed, the doors painted a deep red, window frames a brighter, harsher green than the softly glowing green of the meadows. The room Patrick Ryan built at a right angle to the old house was slated. Sheets of asbestos had replaced the thatch on the original three rooms. On the black windowsills stood little wooden boxes of flowers, velvety pansies and geraniums. The door of the house was open but the silence was so great that the clocks could be heard ticking within. They knew that they had been recognized by the barking of the dogs and were being waited for. They knocked playfully and knocked again.

  “Come in if you’re good-looking.”

  “We’re not. What will we do?”

  “Too bad. You’ll have to stay outside.”

  “Pay no heed to yon omadhaun. He’d disgrace a holy saint,” Mary came towards them with two hands of welcome and kissed them both on the mouth.

  “Kate,” Jamesie demanded with his enormous hand. “God hates a coward. The brave man dies but once.”

  “I’m a weak woman, Jamesie.”

  “You’re not one bit weak.” She gave him her hand. When she cried “Careful, Jamesie,” he released his gently tightening grip with a low cry of triumph. “You are one of God’s troopers, Kate. You are welcome.” He bowed to Ruttledge like a formal clown. “I never liked you anyhow.”

  “I am honoured,” Ruttledge bowed in return.

  After the glaring light of evening on the lake, the room with the one small window looking south was dark even with the door open. They did not see the grandchild Margaret seated on a low stool between Mary’s chair and the yellow cooker with the shining rail. She was a beautiful dark-haired child, with very pale skin and eyes the colour of sloes. Ruttledge lifted her high in affection and welcome to see how she had grown since the summer before.

  “You can’t be doing that any more. She has boys,” Jamesie teased.

  “I have no boys.”

  “Lots of boys. All nice and cuddly. Very nice-mannered boys,” he thrust his tongue out provocatively and pretended to hide his head under his arms while she cuffed him officiously.

  “The other three went with the parents on their holiday but Margaret came to us. Isn’t that right?” Mary said, stroking her hair with affection, and the child nodded gravely as she leaned closer.

  “Where did they go to?” Kate asked.

  “They went,” Jamesie said authoritatively, but couldn’t remember. “They went—you know—out there—somewhere foreign,” he said with a great sweep of his arms.

  Both the child and Mary began to laugh. “Out there, somewhere,” Mary repeated mockingly. “They took a house for three weeks near Florence. Do you have any idea where Italy is?”

  “It’s out there—somewhere,” he said defensively and shook his fist at Margaret.

  “Do you have any earthly idea where Italy is? I declare to God he doesn’t know the difference between Florence and Mullingar. You couldn’t take him anywhere.”

  “They’re all out there somewhere anyhow. We are not a bit bothered about them,” he said grandly, recovering his poise. “Have you any news?”

  “No news. I suppose Johnny is back in England by now.”

  “Long back.”

  “And poor Edmund is gone. He was buried yesterday. May the Lord have mercy,” Mary said softly.

  “I never heard. I’d have gone to the funeral if I’d known,” Ruttledge said, taken aback. “I was fond of Edmund.”

  “We were all fond of Edmund. You’d have heard if you were at Mass,” Jamesie said gently. “That’s what you get for not going to Mass.”

  “You could have told me,” Ruttledge said.

  Jamesie felt the reproach and became uncertain: he was always uncomfortable when appearing in any mean or poor light.

  “He wanted to go for you,” Mary said carefully, “but Patrick didn’t want. He said you weren’t needed.”

  “I should have paid no heed. Patrick would sicken your arse. He wants his own way in everything,” he rested his hand briefly on Ruttledge’s shoulder. “I should have said nothing and just gone over. He’d never have known.”

  “Don’t worry. I was fond of Edmund but it makes no difference now.”

  “There was no wake. He went straight from the hospital to the church. All that was bothering Patrick was all the important people that turned up, doctors and big builders and
politicians, people he worked for. He was pure silly buying them drinks and shaking their hands and looking them straight in the eye and brushing the odd tear away. You’d swear it meant something. Up in their arses he’d go if he was let. He had no time for me and he’d have no time for you either if you were there.”

  “You should know Patrick by now. He wasn’t going to behave any different,” Mary said as if she felt the blame to be excessive. “I suppose if the truth was told they did turn up because of Patrick. Who knew poor Edmund?”

  “We knew him,” Jamesie responded angrily. “There are times when the truth is the wrong thing.”

  “We don’t count,” she replied firmly.

  “Lies can walk while the truth stays grounded,” Ruttledge said.

  “Patrick had no value on Edmund. When he was alive he let the roof of the house fall to be rid of the poor fella.”

  “They say the only people missed Edmund was the dog and old Mrs. Logan. The dog is pining since the day he went to the hospital, comes and goes between the gate and the house looking for him, and the poor woman is lost. She took him in when the roof fell. He did everything for her around the place. They cared a sight for one another.”

  “Did she go to the funeral?”

  “The poor thing wasn’t fit,” Mary smiled a sweet, inward-looking smile. “Anyhow Patrick wouldn’t want her. There’s another person who died, John Quinn’s second wife. John turned up at the funeral though he wasn’t wanted. They didn’t let him into the house but he marched up the chapel with the coffin and knelt in the front seat and shook hands with everybody and went into the solicitor afterwards to see if there was any window through which he could get his hands on money.”

  “John is a sight. It’ll be no time till he’s marrying again. God never closed one door but he opened another.” Jamesie rubbed his hands together gleefully and made a similarly playful gesture towards Mary that he had enough of talking and needed a drink. She answered with a ritualistically disapproving gesture as she went slowly to the press and took out a bottle of Powers. Kate asked for tea but Mary persuaded her that they would both have a light hot whiskey. While they were being made the small airy room filled with the scent of cloves and lemon. Margaret had a large glass of lemonade.

  “Good luck and more again tomorrow and may we never die.”

  “And Johnny has gone back to England after another summer,” Ruttledge said.

  “The train from Dromod. Two drinks in the bar across from the station waiting for the train that you’d be as well without. There’s nothing to celebrate seeing someone going. Margaret’s father met the train, left him at the airport.”

  “I hate to say but I wasn’t sorry,” Mary said. “I had Johnny for most of the whole day every day.”

  “He was very good company when he was over on his visit.”

  “All these fellas know how to play when they are out,” Jamesie raised his hand. “There’s a big differ between visiting and belonging.”

  “Even when he wasn’t talking it was hard seeing him, remembering all that happened,” Mary said. “He thought he could not live without her. At this table he used to put his head down in his arms and cry without crying. There he was a few days ago doing the crosswords or marking the racing pages if he wasn’t talking.”

  “Anna Mulvey must have been beautiful to have set anybody so far astray?”

  “No. There were plenty better looking but she was far ahead of what’s beautiful. Tall, with long black hair, long back, sharp face. All the Mulveys had a swing and an air. The Playboy it was that brought them together. Anna had never any interest in Johnny. She was even two-timing him with Peadar Curran when The Playboy was still on. He had me nearly driven out of my mind when she tried to break it off. Walking up and down, talking, talking, not able to eat, not able to sit for a minute,” Mary said.

  “There were times we got afraid. We didn’t know what he’d do if he got to know about Peadar.”

  “Then he did get to hear,” Mary said.

  “Hugh Brady went and told him when he should have packed him with lies like everybody else. He frightened poor Brady into telling. Johnny went straight from Brady to Anna and she swore she had nothing to do with Curran or any other man. Johnny was like putty in her hands. He went back and devoured Brady for spreading rumours and lies. It was a God’s charity. Omadhauns like Brady are a living danger.

  “Peadar Curran went to England. That was one torment less for Johnny. There was nothing much special about his going. Everybody was going to England. He may have gone as well because the business with Anna was getting too warm for comfort. Peadar was always careful.”

  “Anna was seeing Johnny but only to keep him pacified.”

  “Anna was the next for England. We thought it was to get away from Johnny. The Mulveys were well off and she didn’t have to go. She went after Peadar.”

  “How did Johnny take her going?”

  “What could he do? By then he was grasping at every straw. She promised to write.”

  “Anna got a land in England. The good Peadar had another woman. Then Anna started writing to Johnny. Johnny was delirious for those letters.”

  “Instead of waiting for the post to come to the house he’d go round to meet the postman. He’d stop him on the road and make him search through the letters. Then when she wrote that she missed him and wanted him to come to England I don’t think his feet touched the ground for days.”

  “Then he shot the poor gundogs, Oscar and Bran,” Mary said quietly. “I used to feed those dogs. They were beautiful.”

  “Far better if he’d shot himself or rowed out into the middle of the lake with a stone around his neck,” Jamesie said.

  “All this because Anna happened to be in The Playboy?”

  “She was probably the worst of them as far as the acting went but you couldn’t take your eyes off her while she was on the stage.”

  “Johnny used to get me to read out her lines for him when he was practising his part,” Mary said.

  “Can you remember any of them?”

  “Not a single line, except it was terrible old eejity stuff,” Mary smiled. “Especially when you’d compare it to what was happening under your eyes.”

  “It’s Pegeen I’m seeing only, and what’d I care if you brought me a drift of chosen females, standing in their shifts itself, maybe from this place to the Eastern world?” Ruttledge quoted.

  “That’s it. Terrible eejity stuff,” Mary said.

  “When it was new it had power enough to get people very exercised and excited,” Ruttledge said.

  “It’s easy to get people excited,” Jamesie said dismissively. “Was I like that when I was going round the lake on the bicycle trying to get at you, Mary?”

  “You hardly cared. You were far too interested in everything else that was going on. I was the big booboo. What did I ever see in him, Margaret?” She put her hand on the girl’s hair.

  “Did you see my Jamesie?” he mimicked, rubbing his hands together. “Those were the days, Mary. You loved me then.”

  “Love,” Mary repeated. “Love flies out the window.”

  “When someone falls like Johnny, it guarantees suffering,” Kate said.

  “Isn’t that what courting is all about? It’s finding out,” Mary said. “Those too bound up with themselves will get their eyes opened.”

  “Even the clever ones can get nabbed while they’re circling and beating about,” Jamesie said. “Is that how this fella was nabbed, Kate?”

  “No,” she laughed. “We worked for the same firm in different departments, on different floors. We hardly spoke. I never thought about him in any way in particular other than it was unusual to have someone Irish working in the firm.”

  “Robert Booth was Irish. He gave me the job,” Ruttledge said.

  “You’d never think of Robert as Irish,” Kate said. “He went to acting school to get rid of his accent.”

  “Don’t let him sidetrack you, Kate. We want the low-do
wn on how he was nabbed. We want the feathers,” Jamesie said.

  “Don’t tell him, Kate,” Ruttledge warned playfully.

  “One day our copying machine wasn’t working and I went down to his floor to do some copying. We knew one another’s names and we probably would have exchanged a few words from time to time. Out of the blue he said, ‘You have very nice legs, Kate.’ ”

  Jamesie cheered as if a goal had been scored, while Margaret wagged her finger at him with the solemnity of the pendulums of one of the clocks.

  “Sexy. He was the sleepy fox lying in the grass, all that time waiting to pounce,” Jamesie said.

  “He’d disgrace you,” Mary said.

  “Don’t tell him, Kate,” Ruttledge said. “It’ll be all over the country.”

  “Pay no heed to him either. It’s a charity to show them up,” Mary said.

  “You can’t get on without us either,” Jamesie asserted.

  “Then we met in the lift on the way out of work—I think I might have engineered that—and he invited me for a drink. It was November, it was raining. We went to the Old Wine Shades, a wine bar near the river, not far from the office. We had a bottle of red wine—I hardly ever took a drink then—with a plate of white cheddar and crackers.”

  “I don’t know how you can drink that red wine. It tastes like pure poison. Yer man here was trying to get behind the fence.”