The Collar (2 page)

He was very different from Ned, lighter in colour of hair and skin, fat, fresh-complexioned, autocratic, a great hand with girls or a gun, an irascible, humorous, energetic man, well liked by his flock who knew him for a zealous priest and a good friend in time of trouble. Listening to his breezy, worldly talk, watching his way with men in garages and maids in hotels, Ned envied him. He was lavish and frank with some, pugnacious and exacting with others, differentiating as if by instinct between those who were honest and those who tried to cheat.

It was nightfall when they reached home. Their father was at the gate to greet them, and immediately their mother came rushing out. The lamp was standing in the window. Brigid, the little girl who helped their mother, stood by the door, looking up every few minutes, and when her eye caught theirs, instantly looking down again.

Nothing was changed in the tall bare kitchen. The harness hung still in the same place, the rosary on the same nail within the fireplace, by the stool where their mother sat; table under the window, churn against the back door, stair mounting straight without banisters to the attic door that yawned in the wall; all seemed as unchanging as the sea outside. Their mother was back on to the creepy, her coloured shawl tied about her head, tall, thin and wasted. Their father, stocky and broken-bottomed, stood with one hand on the dresser, looking out the door, while Brigid bustled round him, preparing the tea.

‘I said ye'd be late,' he exclaimed. ‘Didn't I, Brigid? Didn't I keep on saying they'd be late?'

‘You did so.'

‘I did indeed. I knew ye'd be making halts on the road. But damn me, if I didn't run out to meet Thady Lahy's car going east the road!'

‘Was that Thady Lahy's car?' asked his wife with interest.

‘'Twas. He must have gone into town without our knowing it.'

‘There now, didn't I tell you?' said Brigid.

‘I thought 'twas the Master's by the shape of it,' said their mother wonderingly, pulling at the tassels of her shawl.

‘I'd know the rattle of Thady Lahy's car a mile off,' said Brigid.

It seemed to Ned that he was interrupting a conversation which had been going on ever since his last visit.

‘Wisha, I never asked ye if ye'd take a drop!' said old Tomas with sudden vexation. Ned knew to his sorrow that his father could be prudent, silent and calculating; he knew too well the sudden cock of the head, the narrowing of the eyes. But as well as that he loved an innocent excitement. He revelled in scenes of passion about nothing.

‘Is it whiskey?' asked Tom with the roguish twinkle of his father.

‘There's whiskey there as well.'

‘I'll have it.'

‘The whiskey is it?'

‘'Tis not.'

Tomas chuckled and rubbed his hands.

‘Ah, you're not as big a fool as you look! There's fine heating in it.'

‘Who made it?'

‘Coleen Jameseen.'

‘Coleen is it? Didn't they catch that string of misery yet?'

‘Yerra, what catch! There's nothing on legs would catch Coleen without you cut off his own. But, listen here to me! The priest preached a terrible sermon against him!'

‘Is old Fahy on the warpath still?'

‘Oh, my sorrow!' Their father threw his hands to heaven and strode to and fro, his bucket-bottom wagging. ‘Such a flaking and scouring was never heard! Never heard! Never heard! How Coleen was able to raise his head after it! And where that man got all the words from! Tom, my son, my treasure, you'll never have the like of them.'

‘I'd spare my breath to cool my porridge. I dare say you gave up your own still so?'

‘My still, is it? Musha, the drop that I make, 'twouldn't harm a Christian. Only a drop at Christmas and Easter.'

The lamp was back in its old place on the rere wall and made a circle of brightness on the fresh whitewash. Their mother was leaning forward over the fire with joined hands. The front door was still open, and their father walked to and from it, each time warming his broken seat at the fire. Someone passed up the road. Ned covered his eyes with his hands and felt that everything was still as it had been years before. When he closed his eyes he could hear the noise on the strand as a sort of background to the voices.

‘God be with you, Tomas,' said the passer-by.

‘God and Mary be with you, Taige,' shouted Tomas. ‘What way are you?'

‘Well, honour and praise be to God. 'Tis a fine night.'

‘'Tis, 'tis so, thank God, a grand night.'

‘Musha, who is it?' asked their mother looking up.

‘'Tis young Taige.'

‘Shamus's young Taige, is it?'

‘'Tis, of course.'

‘Where would he be going at this hour?'

‘Up to the uncle's, I suppose.'

‘Is it Ned Willie?'

‘He's sleeping at Ned Willie's,' said Brigid in her high timid voice. ‘'Tis since the young teacher came.'

Between his hands Ned smiled. The only unfamiliar voice, Brigid's, seemed the most familiar of all.

3

Tom said first Mass next morning and the whole household, excepting Brigid, went. The chapel was a good distance away. They drove, and Tomas, sitting in front with his son, shouted greetings to all they met. Many of the neighbours were there to greet Tom in the sacristy. The chapel was perched high up from the road. Outside the morning was grey; beyond the windy edge of the hill was the bay. The wind blew straight in, setting petticoats and cloaks flying.

After dinner Ned and he went for a walk into the village. Tom halted to speak to everyone he met. They were late in coming back for tea. Tomas had come out to meet them. He was very pleased about something.

‘Well,' he said when they were seated, ‘I arranged a grand little outing for ye, thanks be to God.'

To mark the source of the inspiration he searched at the back of his neck for the peak of his cap and raised it solemnly.

‘Musha, what outing are you talking about?' asked their mother angrily. Clearly, she and Tomas had had words about it.

‘I arranged for us to go over the bay to the O'Donnells.'

‘Can't you leave the poor boys alone?' bawled Maura. ‘Haven't they only the one day? Isn't it for the rest they came?'

‘Even so, even so, even so,' said Tomas with mounting passion. ‘Aren't their own cousins to be left put an eye on them?'

‘I was there last summer,' said Tom.

‘Yes, but Ned wasn't, and I wasn't.'

‘'Tisn't us you're thinking of at all,' said Tom. ‘Over for a good drinking bout you're going.'

‘Oh – ' Tomas fished for the peak of his cap once more, ‘that I might be struck dead – !'

‘Be quiet, you heathen!' crowed Maura. ‘That's the truth of it, Tom, my pulse. Plenty of poteen is what he wants, where he wouldn't be under my eye. Leave ye stop at home.'

‘I can't stop at home, woman,' shouted Tomas. ‘Why do you be always picking at me? Don't you know well I must go?'

‘Why must you?'

‘Because I warned Red Patrick and Dempsey. And the woman from the island is coming as well. And what's more I borrowed Cassidy's boat, and he lent it at great inconvenience to himself, and it would be very bad manners in me now to turn his kindness back on him.'

‘Oh, we'll go, we'll go,' said Tom.

It blew hard all night, and Tomas was out at the break of day, all anxiety, watching the white tops on the water. While they were breakfasting he came in and, leaning upon the table, announced that it was a beautiful day, thank God, a perfect day with a moist gentle little bit of a breezheen blowing, but Maura nagged and scolded so much that he stamped out again in fury, and sat on the wall chewing his pipe. He had dressed in his best clothes, that is to say, he had turned his cap almost right way around so that the peak covered his right ear; he wore a respectable blue coat cut very long and with the suspicion of a tail and pale grey trousers with but one patch on it.

He was all over the boat like a boy. Dempsey took the helm, a haggard, melancholy man with a soprano voice of astounding penetration, and Red Patrick took charge of the sail. Then Tomas clambered into the bows and stood there, leaning forward with one foot raised. The island woman was perched upon the ballast with her Rosary in her hands and her shawl drawn over her eyes to avoid the sight of the waves.

The cumbrous old boat took the sail lightly enough.

‘She's laughing,' said their father delightedly when her bows ran white.

‘Whose boat is that, Dempsey?' he asked as another brown sail tilted ahead of them.

‘'Tis the island boat,' shrieked Dempsey.

‘'Tis not, Dempsey, 'tis not, my love. That's not the island boat.'

‘Whose boat is it then?'

‘'Tis some boat from Carriganassa.'

‘'Tis the island boat I tell you.'

‘Ah, why will you be contradicting me, Dempsey, my treasure? It is not the island boat. The island boat has a dark brown sail; 'tis only a month or so since 'twas tarred, and that's an old tarred sail, and what's more, Dempsey, and what proves it out and out, the island boat sail has a patch in the corner.'

Tomas was leaning well out over the bow, elbow resting on his knee, looking back at them, his brown face lashed with the spray and shining with the accumulated flickerings of the water. Ned half closed his eyes and watched sky and sea mount and subside behind the red-brown sail and the poised and eager figure.

‘Tom!' shouted the voice from the bow, and the battered old face peered at them from under the sail.

‘Well?'

‘You were right last night, Tom, my boy. My treasure, my son, you were right. 'Twas for the sake of the drink I came.'

‘I know damn well it was.'

‘'Twas for the sake of the drink. 'Twas so, my darling. They were always decent people, your mother's people, and 'tis her knowing the decency of her own family that makes her so suspicious. She's a good woman, a fine woman, your poor mother, may the Almighty God bless her and keep her and watch over her.'

‘Amen, O Lord!' chorused Tom ironically as his father shook his headgear piously towards the spring sky.

‘But Tom! Are you listening to me, Tom?'

‘Well? What is it now?'

‘I had another reason too.'

‘Had you now?'

‘'Twas taking pride out of the pair of ye,' shrieked Dempsey from the helm, the wind whipping the shrill notes from his lips and scattering them like scraps of paper.

‘'Twas so, Dempsey, 'twas so. You're right, man. You're always right. God's blessing on you, Dempsey, for you always had the true word.' Tomas's leprechaun countenance gleamed under the bellying chocolate-coloured sail, fierce and wild and full of humour, and his powerful voice beat Dempsey's down. ‘And would you blame me?'

‘The O'Donnells haven't the beating of them in their own flock.'

‘Thanks be to the Almighty God for all his goodness and mercy,' shouted the old man, raising his cap once more. ‘They have not. They have not so, Dempsey. The O'Donnells are a good family and an old family and a kind family, but they haven't the like of my two clever sons.'

‘And they were stiff enough to you when you came for their daughter.'

‘They were. They were, Dempsey. They were stiff. They were so. You wouldn't blame them, Dempsey. They were an old family. I was nothing but a landless man and like a landless man they treated me.' The old man dragged his cap still farther over his ear, gave his moustache a tug and leaned at a still more precarious angle over the bows, his blue eyes dancing with triumph. ‘But I had the gumption, Dempsey. I had the gumption, my love.'

The bare mountainsides drew closer, the islands slipped past, the gulf of water narrowed and grew calmer, and white cottages could be seen scattered about under the tall ungainly church which seemed identical with what they had left behind. It was a wild and rugged coast; the tide was only just beginning to fall, and they had to pull in as best they could among the rocks. Red Patrick leaped lightly on shore and drew them in. The others stepped after him into five or six inches of water, and Red Patrick, himself precariously poised, held them from slipping. Rather shamefastly Tom and Ned began to unlace their shoes.

‘Don't do that!' shrieked their father. ‘We'll carry you up! Ah, your poor feet! Your poor feet!'

‘Shut your clob!' said Tom angrily, as he took Red Patrick's hand, and clambered up the slimy rocks. Then the whole party set out across the fields. As they entered a little winding lane they were met by the Caheraghs, who insisted on their coming in for a few minutes. Old Caheragh had a red beard and a pleasant, smiling face. His daughter was tall and good-looking. After they had given their customary greetings and promises to return they resumed their way up the hill to the O'Donnells.

The O'Donnells had two houses, separated only by a yard. In one lived their Uncle Maurice and his family, in the other Maurice's married son. While their father went across the way Ned and Tom stayed with Sean and his wife. Sean was a grim, silent fellow, but Tom and he were old friends. When he spoke he rarely looked at the priest, merely gave his a sidelong glance which barely reached to his chin, and then dropped his eyes with a peculiar, timid smile. His wife had once been a beauty. She was a tall, matronly, nervous woman who clung to her visitors' hands with a feverish clutch as though she could not bear to let them go, at the same time uttering ejaculations of tenderness, delight, surprise, pity and admiration. Her speech was full of diminutives, ‘childeen', ‘handeen', ‘boateen'. Three young children scrambled and crawled and howled about the floor with a preoccupation scarcely once broken by the strangers, and she picked her way through them, hastening to fill the kettle, and then, as though fearing she was neglecting her guests, interrupting this to take up their hands again. When she spoke her whole body swayed towards them, and her feverish concentration gave the impression that by its very intensity it bewildered her and made it impossible for her to understand a word they said.