On the evening before Monaghan Day, Jamesie and Ruttledge loaded the cattle into the trailer and ran them into the mart. The grounds around the mart were relatively empty and it was easy to back the trailer in between the gates. They made three runs. Because of their wildness, they had to make an extra run to bring Patrick’s cattle in.
“A most hopeless man,” Jamesie sang as he gloated over the sleekness of his own cattle set beside Patrick’s rough beasts. “As clever, as clever a man as ever walked these parts but no care, no care in the world.”
“Do you think he’ll turn up tomorrow?”
“Don’t you worry. He’ll turn up. With all that excitement and show and a world of strangers, our Patrick will not be found missing.”
The great wastegrounds around the mart were deserted except for the cars and tractors bringing in cattle early. Plastic bags shone gaudily along where they were caught in the ragged line of whitethorns that marked the boundary on a high mound. The powerful arc lamps were on and men were testing and oiling gates and spreading bales of straw. In the low-ceilinged office lit by naked bulbs, a woman wrote down their names and addresses and handed them the white paper discs with their numbers. They then drove the cattle from the holding pen into the narrow chutes. On a concrete walk above the chutes an attendant in a blue cloth coat checked each ear-tag against the cattle cards, and with a dab from a big pot of glue fixed the pale numbered discs to their backs.
“Good luck tomorrow,” he said as he bound their green cards with a rubber band and placed them with other cards in a big cardboard box. They separated the bulls and heifers and closed them in pens beside the sale rings and left them hay and water for the night.
“They’ll never see the fields around the lake again,” Jamesie repeated.
In the near-empty mart the small early herds looked forlorn under the glare of the arc lamps in the rows of tubular steel, all of them lowing plaintively, their breaths showing in the cold air.
Jamesie didn’t want to go for a drink to Luke’s or any other bar. He was too tense but would never admit to such feelings. Tomorrow all the pride and care for his animals would be tested against the prices they would fetch. When they reached the lake he insisted on getting out of the car at his gate and walking all the way on his own to the house in the darkness. “Haven’t I done it thousands and thousands of times?”
He was waiting at the corner of the lake the next morning. So many trucks and cars and tractors were drawn up along the sides of the road on the outskirts of town that they decided to abandon the car and walk. It was as if a great show or circus had come to town, except no flags were flying other than the lone tricolour outside Jimmy Joe McKiernan’s. At the mart gates, horns were hooting and men were getting out of lorries and shouting and swearing as they waited to get out and in. Every square yard of the wasteground round the mart was filled.
The traders had already set out their stalls. Chain saws were displayed on a long trestle table beneath a canvas tent that bulged and flapped. From the open back of a van a man was selling animal medicines, sprays and drenches and large cans of disinfectant, sticks of caustic for removing horns, bone-handled knives with curved blades for dressing hooves. One whole side of a covered lorry was open. They had grease guns, tins of oil, top links for tractors, chains, pulleys, blue bales of rope. Close by was a van selling wellingtons, work boots, rainwear, overalls. Elsewhere, shovels, spades, forks, hedge knives, axes, picks were displayed leaning against the side of a van. All kinds of tool handles stood in barrels. Every stall was drawing its own small crowd.
Their cattle were safe in their pens but now other cattle were packed in among them so that they didn’t have space to move or lie. All the other pens were similarly filled and it was like a breathing sea of cattle under the steel girders and the lamps and the spluttering loudspeakers. A group of judges accompanied by a crowd moved along the pens reserved for the cattle competing for prizes in the different breeds. They paused and discussed and sometimes looked again before handing out the red and blue and yellow rosettes to a sudden sharp burst of clapping from the crowd. Then they moved on quickly to the next stall where the same process was repeated. The names of the winners in each section and the overall winner, the champion of Monaghan Day, were broadcast on the crackling, echoing loudspeakers to further applause, followed by a warning that the sale was commencing shortly. When the loudspeakers went dead, the lowing and bellowing and shouting, sliding of hooves, the clanging of gates resumed.
Jamesie entered both pens to quickly groom and freshen the appearance of his animals, but Ruttledge thought the grooming would have little effect. In his mind the cattle were already gone. The buyers were moving among the pens. They were easy to pick out, as they wore hats and ties and suits protected by cloth overcoats with large square pockets, and they wore the red cattlemen’s boots laced high. Some carried bamboo canes like military batons. The signs were good if they paused outside the pens, and even better if they prodded or felt the cattle, and better still if they noted down their numbers.
Jamesie and Ruttledge didn’t have to meet Patrick Ryan until the commencement of the sale and went to the restaurant and had mugs of tea at the counter. Some men who had come distances were already eating dinners or big sandwiches at the Formica-topped tables on the rough concrete floor. In the kitchen behind the counter, women with their hair gathered up in pink plastic hats were busy rushing about as they prepared the hundreds of meals they would be serving till late into the night. While they were at the counter another announcement that the sale was about to begin spluttered over the loudspeakers but not until they heard the unmistakable sound of the actual bidding did they leave for the ring. Patrick was already there. In a dark suit and white shirt and tie he looked more like one of the dealers than any of the farmers gathered around the ring.
“Patrick. You’re shining,” Jamesie held out his great hand.
“The two of yous are a sight for sore eyes,” he said with perfect poise in the middle of the jostling and pushing in the crush around the ring. “If you didn’t leave your manners behind today you’d be walked on.”
“We never had much in the first place,” Jamesie responded, delighted.
“Did ye get my poor steers in or did they take to the hedges?”
“In no time they’ll be coming under the hammer. They look so good we were nearly putting them in for the prizes,” Jamesie said.
“Would you like to see them, Patrick?” Ruttledge enquired. “The pen is nearhand.”
“I’ll see them soon enough,” he laughed agreeably.
The initial bidding was slow. The cattle entered the ring through a weighing cage, the hands of the scale swinging wildly around the big white face before settling on the number of kilos the animal weighed. The assistant to the auctioneer then chalked up the animal’s number and weight on the back of a board and then swung it round to face the ring. None of the first six cattle to enter the ring was sold. There was much of the actor in the auctioneer; he bantered and traded insults with the tanglers, to the amusement of the crowd packing the barriers and sitting in the high stand above the ring.
“This is a fucken disaster,” he shouted down.
Then, to further laughter and cheering, he rolled his sleeves up as if getting ready to fight. “We might as well all go home and go to bed,” he shouted, and the shouts and the answering jeers and laughter crackled and spluttered out from the loudspeakers.
“You’ll have a great time riding Molly,” was shouted back and cheered to the roof, while the auctioneer pretended to be shocked, which increased the cheering. “Nobody ever does the like of that in this part of the country,” he shouted nonchalantly back, which was received with wild hooting and cheering and wolf-whistles.
Suddenly, a dramatic hush fell. The big dealers were taking their places around the ring and on the steps of the stand. The banter ended. There was a deadly silence as the bids rose quickly: “Who’ll give me four hundred?—420, 430, 440, 460, 70, 80.
Who’ll give me five hundred? On my right—505, 510, 520, 510. All done,” the auctioneer leaned to the seller in the box below the auctioneer’s seat. They held a brief discussion. “Not enough. He wants a little more. Who’ll give me 520, 515, 510. I have to my left 510, any more, who’ll give me more?” The price didn’t advance, and he looked to the seller again, who nodded. “On the mart—510, 515, 520, 540, 550, 555, 65, 70, 75, 80, 580 pounds. All done. All done.” He looked round at all the bidders moving slowly from face to face. “Sold! Five hundred and eighty pounds!” bringing the hammer down.
Once started, the selling went very quickly. The auctioneer’s voice took on the incantation of prayer; it was the rhythm and repetition that indicated its simple purpose more than any words or numbers. After the first dozen or so sales, a murmur of approval went round the ring. The prices were good, more than good, and all the indications were that it was going to be a great Monaghan Day.
Jamesie’s face expressed his relief instantly but he was too tense to speak or rub his hands in satisfaction. Already Patrick Ryan had wandered away to another part of the ring and was talking with other people. Ruttledge and Jamesie decided to separate. Ruttledge was to go to the other ring and sell the heifers. They couldn’t risk staying together because they couldn’t be sure which would come on the market first. On his way between the rings he passed Father Conroy, who nodded recognition but did not pause or speak. Close to him was his old acolyte, the church sacristan, Jimmy Lynch. The priest had made no attempt at disguise and was wearing his white collar with old clerical clothes. He was absorbed and separate. There were many there who knew him but once they saw his face they turned aside. Care was needed passing between the rings, and a number of times Ruttledge had to climb on gates and the rungs of pens to avoid the rush of milling, frightened cattle being moved between the rings and the pens.
As soon as he reached the heifer ring, he saw from the chalked numbers that he hadn’t come too early, and he recognized his own cattle in one of the holding pens. They did not look distressed. By now, they were probably numbed. As their numbers drew close, the selling seemed to race. Ruttledge watched the big hands of the scale until it came to rest when the first animal entered the cage, and waited to see that it tallied with the number chalked on the board before entering the box. Through the little window he was able to look out at the buyers crowding round the ring and packing the stand. Like prayers, the bids were called out, and when they slowed to a stop the auctioneer leaned down. “What do you think yourself?” he found himself asking, despite the fact that he knew the auctioneer would not want to take responsibility. The auctioneer went round the ring again. The bids rose a little higher. The next time he looked his way he nodded vigorously to sell.
“On the mart—slowly.” The bidding rose quickly and when the auctioneer brought down the hammer, he turned towards the box and nodded his satisfaction with the price. What followed was over in an instant. He was being handed the sales’ slips and another man was taking his place in the box. At other marts he had seen old farmers leaving the box looking as dazed and befuddled as he felt. A man clapped him on the shoulder and brought a smiling, friendly face up close. “Those were great prices. They were nice cattle!”
“Are you buying or selling yourself?”
“Selling but it’ll be hours yet till I’m on.”
“Good luck. The mart is good.”
“Thanks … as long as it keeps up,” the man said fervently.
On his way back, a look at the sales’ slips confirmed that Jamesie had got the higher prices. In the crowd round the ring he found Jamesie and Patrick back together again. He handed them the slips. Jamesie’s huge hands were shaking.
“The prices are good but Jamesie got the best prices.”
“Jamesie is always winning,” Patrick Ryan winked. “He must have the best, best cattle in, in, in the whole of Ireland.”
“Not the worst anyhow,” Jamesie sang out, ignoring the play. “The prices are so close that there’s hardly a whit of difference.”
The bidding had slowed around the bullock ring as previous withdrawals were rerun again, to the auctioneer’s obvious impatience.
“Tanglers trying their cattle,” Jamesie said.
Then the bidding quickened. They saw their cattle being driven into the holding pens next to the weighing cage. The number chalked up on the board was only two numbers away from their numbers. Because of the good prices the heifers went for, Jamesie insisted superstitiously that Ruttledge sell the bullocks as well. Patrick Ryan didn’t want to go near the box. “Sell them no matter what you get. Sell them if you get anything. Sell them to hell. They are not coming home.”
Ruttledge was calmer now. He saw his own animal enter the ring, its weight chalked up on the board, and watched the coded signals of the dealers as they bid, the bids translated into the rhythmic exhortation of the auctioneer. When the bidding slowed and the auctioneer leaned towards him, he nodded to him to complete the sale. There were a few shouted insults about racehorses and “age is venerable” when Patrick Ryan’s steers entered the ring. At first the bidding was much lower than for the other cattle but once they were put on the mart there was sharp competition and they went for a higher price than anybody had expected. The two men were delighted and they were being congratulated all round when Ruttledge rejoined them.
“Do you want to stay around for a while or will we head off?” Ruttledge asked.
“We’ll go,” Jamesie said with feeling. “I hate the mart. We’ll go.”
“We’ll go in the name of God. We’ll go like good Christians,” Patrick Ryan laughed.
Slowly they untangled themselves from the crush of men around the ring and reached the wide passageway between the pens. At a distant pen they saw the priest and his sacristan looking at cattle.
“You’d think he’d go and get someone else to sell the cattle for him. It doesn’t look the thing to see him in his black gear in the middle of the mart,” Patrick Ryan said.
“I’d have no fault with poor Father Conroy. He’s as good, as plain a priest as ever came about,” Jamesie said.
“If his black gear hasn’t a place in the cattle mart, it hasn’t a place anywhere else either. It either belongs to life or it doesn’t,” Ruttledge said.
“Everything has its place, lad. Even you should know that,” Patrick Ryan said.
“Shots, shots!” Jamesie warned gently.
“They had this whole place abulling with religion once. People were afraid to wipe their arses with grass in case it was a sin.”
“They’d be better off with hay,” Jamesie said while nudging Ruttledge to stay silent. Because of the crowds filling the sidewalks they had to thread their way through the town. Patrick Ryan started to chew the side of his mouth, a sure sign he was in foul humour, but it changed quickly as soon as people greeted him. Their progress through the town was slow. Jamesie and Ruttledge paused several times and waited while Patrick delighted in the chance meetings. They did not mind. They had the whole day.
“Don’t go against Patrick in anything to do with religion or politics or we’ll be sick all day listening to lectures,” Jamesie warned during one of the waits, and Ruttledge nodded agreement.
There were three detectives instead of the usual two in the alleyway across from Jimmy Joe McKiernan’s bar. The door of the bar was wedged open to let in air. Men stood shoulder to packed shoulder outside the counter of the narrow bar as far back as the eye could follow, spilling out into the wide yard at the back. The hubbub of the voices was intense.
“They’re getting surer of themselves. They think their day will be soon here,” Patrick Ryan said.
“They honoured themselves at Enniskillen. How many innocent people did they kill and maim?” Ruttledge said.
Jamesie stretched out his boot to press hard on Ruttledge’s, reminding him to be silent.
For the first time that year the cabbage man was outside Luke Henry’s bar. The doors of the van were open, on v
iew the neat rows of plants—Early York, Flat Dutch and Curly—tied in bundles with yellow binder twine.
“Me old comrade,” Jamesie took hold of his arm. “The winter is over.”
The man was wearing overalls and his pleasant round face under a cloth cap was smiling. “The plants are ready for spring, whatever about the weather,” he said self-effacingly. “You wouldn’t think of coming back to chance it with the potatoes again?”
“No, not on a bet,” Jamesie put his hand out with finality. “Too old. Finished. No use.”
“You wouldn’t try me out?” Patrick Ryan asked roguishly.
“There’s only the one Jamesie,” the cabbage man said. “They pegged away the mould when they made Jamesie.”
Jamesie cheered and everybody laughed. All three men bought a bundle of Early York. As Jamesie continued chatting, Patrick and Ruttledge entered the bar.
“He could be there an hour yet. He’s a pure child,” Patrick said.
The bar was crowded. Many greeted them. Because of the high prices, there was great praise for this Monaghan Day, and there was unusual good humour. Patrick insisted on ordering the first round and buying three whiskeys to have with the three pints.
“Too much. Too much. Too much,” he heard Jamesie’s voice like a measuring echo, and raised his glass in no more than a ritual protest. “Good man, Patrick. You have a heavy hand but may you live for ever and never die in want,” Jamesie raised the glass of whiskey disapprovingly when he joined them but drank it with a flourish, buoyed by his chat with the cabbage man.
“You’re flying, Jamesie,” Patrick countered defensively.
“Never even tried it, Patrick,” he said after finishing the whiskey, before taking a long satisfying drink from the pint.
“The same again, Mary, when you have the time,” Jamesie called softly to one of the girls serving behind the counter. He may have disapproved of Patrick’s heavy hand but was determined not to be outdone.
By the Lake Page 25
