Bogmail

by Patrick McGinley

  A big thrush lit on the mountain ash whose red berries had gone, apart from an out-of-reach cluster at the tip of a drooping branch. Recalling summer mornings and birds breakfasting, he noted how the fernlike leaves, some a sickly yellow and some a faded green, looked as if they belonged to different trees. His eye travelled to the weeping willow by the stream, whose drooping branches waved to and fro like ribbons sweeping a circle of black, sticky earth on which nothing grew. A single leaf fell from a sycamore and stuck in the wet clay beneath, a cheerless sight that made him think again of Margaret. She had left him of her own free will but he would never be rid of her entirely. He was stuck with her; at least until she found another man capable of occupying whatever vacuum he had left in her life. There were several niches in every woman’s Pantheon and only one man could occupy each of them because no man had all the gifts. If he married Nora Hession, what would she make of Margaret’s letters? And if Margaret married, what would her husband make of her obsession with ‘an old flame’, who, in Margaret’s phrase, was little better than ‘an old soak’? He was crossing bridges before coming to them. He would live in the present and deal with the future when it came.

  Day was fading from the sky. Ink-black clouds pressed together over the north mountain while in a corner of the west a single shaft of crimson light pierced the heavy cumulus over the sea. It was a picture of his own disappointing life, so far from the high ideal with which he had set out. Still, he was grateful for the single shaft of light that was Nora Hession. It was beginning to rain, and with the rain came sadness. Nothing was perfect, least of all the weather. He found himself humming an adagio from an early Mozart symphony that Margaret loved to listen to on Sunday afternoons.

  In spite of his memories, he had much to be thankful for. He had enjoyed the past two months. As he predicted, Nora had flowered. In the space of a few weeks she had brightened into a laughing, happy girl who had only rare moments of doubt about the reality of what was happening to them both. She came to the cottage and cooked him meals on the open peat fire, simple meals with flavours as fine as her own sense of humour. At first she came to his bed with a semblance of diffidence and longing that reminded him of his adolescence and made him feel closer to her than he really was. Later she was open and loving, meeting him as an equal partner with a gift of jogging him into moments of self-mockery and happy self-discovery. Never before had he such a sense of sharing in something so unexpected, so different from anything in his previous experience. He took her to the local hotel for drinks, to Donegal Town for dinner, and for walks on the mountains and along the sea cliffs where she shared his field-glasses and soon came to recognise the rarer species in which he was interested. They talked about everything except their relationship, which was a welcome change from Margaret’s recently acquired passion for the kind of dissection that kills all spontaneity and creates a feeling that life is no more than a puppet-show to be ridiculed.

  When he was not at work on the mountain or with Nora Hession, he was immersed in the erratic affairs of the Anti-Limestone Society. He was devoting far too much time to it, simply because without his constant urging it would have died a natural death. The so-called executive committee, provided it had enough to drink, would talk the hind leg off a donkey without giving a thought to action. Roarty seemed willing enough at their evening meetings, only to appear absentminded and preoccupied the following day. At times it was difficult to know what precisely was on his mind. Rory Rua, though sensible and sharp-witted, was too unwilling to offend the Canon while Gimp Gillespie was a man of words rather than deeds, and his words followed a formula that never varied. His anodyne report of one of their most obstreperous meetings read like a mischievous parody of the affairs of the Irish Countrywomen’s Association.

  Cor Mogaill alone was willing to match words with deeds. He and Potter hung banners across the village street and distributed stickers to every car owner in the glen. They organised a well-attended meeting in the local hall and visited every house in the parish, collecting signatures for a petition to Canon Loftus with a copy to the bishop, but still the Canon sat tight. They had expected fulminations from the pulpit and at least a letter of acknowledgement from the bishop only to be met with a wall of ecclesiastical silence.

  Potter did not believe for a moment that Loftus would give up without a fight, and he was determined to show at all costs that he and his friends had not run out of ideas. After much toing and froing, he prevailed on Roarty, against the counsel of Rory Rua, to call a public meeting to discuss the possibility of withholding financial support from the new church, unless the Canon gave in. In addition he urged Gimp Gillespie to write a lively piece for one of the Dublin dailies in view of the bishop’s known sensitivity to adverse publicity. Gillespie, however, had his own ideas about his proper role. ‘I’m a Donegal man writing for Donegal men, not an unprincipled hack writing for Dublin jackeens who wouldn’t know what to do with a square meal if they saw one.’

  Gillespie’s refusal to put himself out was an all-too-frequent manifestation of the cussedness of the Irish character. From what he’d seen of them since his arrival, he liked the Irish. They were distinctly more attractive at home than abroad—like their national drink, they did not travel well. What he could not understand was their readiness to be taken in by conversation. They seemed to believe that if you talked about something for long enough, it would come to pass without raising a hand or foot. As an attitude, it might be excusable if the conversation itself was ingenious. On the contrary, he had come to the conclusion that the so-called inventiveness of Irish conversation was a myth put about by reticent Englishmen.

  The Irish in his view were not great conversationalists in the manner of Dr Johnson; they were great talkers content to brogue away over pints of stout, constructing verbal castles in the air without a thought for matter or meaning. If the essence of conversation was communication, then the Irish failed the test, dealing as they did in the embroidery of obfuscation. Irish conversation was like one of those Celtic designs in the Book of Kells made up of a simple form like a serpent that tied itself into a thousand ornamental knots before finally eating its own tail. He wasn’t sufficiently small minded to wish to teach the Irish how to converse but he had already shown one or two of them how things were done. Now he would have another word with Gillespie, in the hope that he might finally see the folly of his ways.

  He drove to the village in the gathering dusk with great raindrops splashing against the windscreen and drumming on the metal of the roof. He had promised to take Nora to the hotel for a quiet drink at eight, after she had served the Canon his dinner. They would sit by the big peat fire with the long-legged tongs and exchange simple stories of the day. This evening he would tell her about his hopes, and perhaps she would tell him about hers. He had told her more about his past than she had told him about hers. She was a private person, placid on the surface but deep; a sensitive girl who’d been hurt in love more than once. He could see that she liked being with him, but more than that he could not say. Perhaps he’d never get to know her, and perhaps it did not matter. He’d felt he knew Margaret, only to have her tell him that he was one of those men who’d never get to know any woman because he lacked the insight that makes the crossing of boundaries possible. He must not think of Margaret because thinking of her reminded him of so many things he wished to forget.

  Gillespie lived at the top end of the village in a low, thatch-roofed cottage with great eaves that had deepened over two centuries. Potter opened the door without knocking as was the local custom, and found Gillespie at his desk with two long index fingers poised over an antiquated typewriter. On the shelf above him were the tools of his humble trade—Brewer, Bartlett, Chambers and Fowler—and along the wall were great stacks of dusty newspapers, back copies of the Donegal Dispatch which he plagiarised unashamedly whenever news was scarce. He peered at Potter through a pair of steel-rimmed glasses that gave him the look of a wise old owl in a book of nursery rhymes.
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  ‘What are you writing?’ Potter asked.

  ‘Next week’s notes for the Dispatch.’

  ‘Don’t you even wait for the news to happen?’

  ‘I know it already,’ said Gillespie, handing him a typewritten sheet.

  Potter sat at the table and read with the sense of utter disbelief he always experienced when confronted with a sample of Gillespie’s prefabricated prose:

  A gentle, kind and charitable member of the Baltimore community has passed to her eternal reward in the person of Miss Detta Cunningham. News of her death cast a shadow of gloom over Glenkeel last week though the deceased had not returned to her native Tork since emigrating to America towards the close of the last century. She had just celebrated her ninety-sixth birthday and was for many years head cook to General Eisenhower before he became President.

  The potato crop in mountainy townlands is the best in living memory. The moist, boggy soil coupled with the long, hot summer and no blight accounts, farmers are agreed, for the prolific crop. It has been a vintage year for Aran banners in particular.

  Glenkeel shopkeepers are reporting an early demand for Christmas cards this year with stronger emphasis than usual on religious themes. This early demand is regarded as highly significant. One surprised shopkeeper told your correspondent that customers are either disregarding rising prices and high postage or have decided that their decision not to send cards last year was too Scrooge-like to be worthy of a people who walk in the footsteps of Saint Patrick.

  ‘But there isn’t a word of truth in what you’ve written!’ Potter laughed. ‘There is no gloom over Glenkeel. There are no queues for Christmas cards. Dammit, man, it’s only October. So why have you written this pack of lies when you could have tossed off a column of the truth about the business of the Anti-Limestone Society? Or are these seemingly idiotic notes a clever allegory for something else?’

  ‘You fail to realise that there is a received style for the “Donegal Notes and News” which must be adhered to at all costs. When someone dies, a shadow of gloom invariably falls over the area. A dead man is always described as being of sterling character and having come from a highly esteemed family, and a deceased woman as kind, gentle and charitable. If ever those time-honoured epithets were omitted, the relatives of the deceased would want to know why. I’ve heard of a correspondent from Garron who got two black eyes for misspelling the word “sterling”.’

  ‘I’m not complaining about the style. I’m complaining about the subject. Why not write what everyone is talking about in the pubs: bestiality in Ballinamuck; the threat to stop paying in church collections; the theft of the Canon’s rifle and claret? If you were on a Fleet Street paper, you’d be sacked on the spot. Why, they wouldn’t even have you on The Times!’

  ‘I write what people expect to read. They don’t expect to read about bestiality in a Christian country.’

  ‘This is not a society of self-publicists, Gillespie. Its only voice is you, and your notes are the only reflection of themselves that people see from one week to the next. They don’t read books and they don’t watch television. All they read is your notes, and this is what you give them!’

  ‘You don’t understand, Potter. They read my notes simply because they already know what they will find in them. What they seek is not the new or the sensational, but sanction and reassurance in repetition. They enjoy the stories of the shanachie over and over again for the very same reason. They don’t want to hear about your Anti-Limestone Society; they wish to read about shoals of mackerel off the coast in summer, bumper crops in the autumn, and impassable roads in winter—things that assure them all is right with the world. If you wish to know how this society represents itself to itself, don’t read my notes but go down to Roarty’s and listen to the conversation in the bar. It’s the nearest thing to art that this society creates.’

  ‘No, Gillespie. You go down to Roarty’s and listen. Then come back and write your notes.’

  ‘Have a drink, Potter. You’re taking all this far too seriously.’

  ‘I don’t want a drink, thank you. I came to ask again if you are going to write a few wise words for the Dublin dailies about the Anti-Limestone Society. I can let you have some photos of the church and our banners to add weight to your fulminations.’

  Gillespie went to the dresser and came back with two bumpers of whiskey.

  ‘Sorry, I don’t rise to Glenmorangie. All I have is Irish, I’m afraid.’

  ‘You’d better give me plenty of water. Neat Irish gives me the most vicious heartburn.’

  Gillespie vanished into the kitchen and returned with an impressively large ewer, which he placed on the table by Potter’s elbow.

  ‘I’m still waiting for your answer,’ Potter said.

  ‘Why the hurry? Can’t you sit back, stretch your legs, enjoy your drink, and let your mind hover over pleasantries?’

  ‘If you won’t do it, I will.’

  ‘Well, what’s stopping you?’

  ‘Can I borrow your typewriter?’

  ‘Yes, provided you return it in time for next week’s notes.’

  ‘If you like, I’ll write them, and I promise not to make them up.’

  ‘You’re a changed man, Potter. When you came here first, I thought you had a sense of humour. This anti-limestone business has taken you over lock, stock and barrel. Where is your philosophy, man?’

  ‘Talking of lock, stock and barrel, you must do an exposé of McGing. The man is mad. He practically accused me the other day of stealing the Canon’s rifle and claret.’

  ‘As Roarty says, the law as personified in McGing is not merely an ass but an egregious ass. I can’t imagine why he picked on you?’

  ‘He said the burglar must have known his way around the parochial house, and that I could have been briefed by Nora. He also said that the burglar drank half a bottle of Glenlivet and left a full bottle of Bushmills untouched, something apparently that no self-respecting Irishman would do.’

  ‘You should have told him that no self-respecting Catholic would drink a Protestant whiskey from the North if he could get Scotch.’

  ‘I’ll never get the hang of all this Irish tribalism. I told him that Glenmorangie not Glenlivet is my tipple, and that I have a perfectly good Winchester of my own.’

  ‘McGing sees himself as the new Holmes. Believe it or not, I once heard him say in all seriousness, “My methods are based on the observation of trifles”.’

  ‘So what are you going to do about it?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Are you going to expose him in the local press for a dangerous lunatic or are you going to write about potatoes?’

  ‘You’d like me to write about the flower of a single summer. I take the long view. I write about the hidden rhizome in the soil that puts forth again and again.’

  ‘Gillespie, you’re impossible,’ Potter said, rising to go.

  ‘Where’s your hurry? Stay until we’ve emptied the bottle and fulfilled ourselves in philosophical conversation.’

  ‘I’m afraid I must go. I’m taking Nora to the hotel for her brand of philosophical conversation.’

  ‘As a bachelor, what can I say? The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid. They are four things which I know not.’ Gillespie gave him one of his lopsided smiles.

  ‘Come up to my place for a drink tomorrow evening. I’ve got a full bottle of Glenmorangie and I’ll get in some Guinness to help out.’

  ‘Potter, you’re a gentleman. And we’ll continue our discussion of the flower and the rhizome.’

  Potter pulled up outside Roarty’s, hoping that a large Glenmorangie might cool his throat after the fire of the Irish whiskey. Roarty was at his most affable. ‘I’ve got news for you,’ he smiled. ‘The Canon has invited all of us on the executive committee to the parochial house for a meeting on Friday at eight. He’s bitten at last, the devil.’

  ‘I wonder w
hat’s on his mind,’ said Potter.

  ‘Devilment! What else?’ said Roarty.

  Potter drank his whiskey with lingering appreciation and discussed with Crubog whether snipe should be drawn before roasting. As he turned to go, Roarty, who was collecting glasses, caught his arm.

  ‘I heard you on about snipe. Are you game for a snipe shoot the morning after the next full moon? If the night before is clear and calm, they’ll be sitting close, just right for a shot.’

  ‘There’s nothing I’d like better,’ said Potter, determined to get the bigger bag.

  15

  An evening without whiskey was a trial to Roarty. For that reason he usually avoided places without a ready supply of the amber elixir. Needless to say, he was not looking forward to an evening of near abstinence in Canon Loftus’s parlour. He was confident that the Canon would be sufficiently civilised to offer them a drink, but it would be ‘a drink’, not drinks, certainly not enough to wet a drinking man’s gullet. As it had now gone seven, only an hour remained to top up the alcohol already in the bloodstream and ensure a glow of physical comfort that would last for at least a further two hours. Though he’d just poured his sixth double of the evening, he was still on edge, still aware of that contraction of the muscles or nerves or whatever caused this pervasive sense of discomfort. He could relax neither standing nor sitting. Everything but everything impinged on him with aching immediacy.

  The only exception, the only oasis of pleasure in his life, was Susan. She came to his bed quite frequently now, often when he least expected her. Unlike Florence, she didn’t seem to mind his outré lovemaking technique. She was one of those women who took pleasure in the exploration of obscure byways. Last night she’d said to him with a smile, ‘You and I have a secret we can’t share with anyone. We’re members of a club of two, and that makes us special.’ She could see the funny side of his predicament, and it seemed to him that she valued him all the more for it. She would brush slowly against him in doorways and stand close to him in the bar when there was no one else around, allowing her breasts to rub against his chest. After closing time she’d sit in his lap and stroke his beard and allow him to kiss her breasts. ‘You’re the best lover any girl could wish for,’ she once said to him, putting her hand down inside his underpants. ‘All pleasure and no risk.’