Collected Short Stories (29 page)

‘Ach, God knows where she is by this time,' replied Paddy.

‘Would it cost much to replace it?'

‘Ach, Mr Devlin, it's not the cost that matters – it's what it meant to Annie,' and he bent confidentially to Mr Devlin. ‘It was her husband that made it thirty years ago. It was a model of his own ship and since he went away she cleaned and polished it. It held raw memories for her!'

‘Where is he now?' Mr Devlin asked.

‘He never came back. They were married in June and early in September of the same year he went away and she never saw him again.'

‘Were they … happy?'

‘Happy! … He was a ship's carpenter – a fine lump of a fella – and made every stick of furniture that went into their house. They lived at Ballycarry on the east side of the island. We still have the house, but she never goes there now … She still thinks he'll come back.'

‘And will he, do you think?'

Paddy shook his head: ‘He'll not, poor fella. I think he's drowned.'

Terence's eyes were on the sea, but sometimes when a sheep would move he would stretch out his hand and pat its wet head. Paddy spoke in a low voice, but Terence wasn't listening to him.

‘They spent three happy months together on the island,' continued Paddy. ‘His ship was bound for Canada for a load of grain. It left the Clyde and it was to pick him up passing the island. He was on the look-out for it and when it came into the sound they sent a small boat ashore for him. But at night the wind had fallen and the schooner was becalmed.'

Mr Devlin noticed that his suitcase was lying flat and the rain was creeping into it, but he did not move and inclined his head nearer to Paddy's.

‘Annie kept her light in the window and at dawn she was down on the shore looking out at the great schooner. She waved, knowing he'd see her. The next day the ship was still there. It was a day like the one you met coming to the island – terribly warm. But during the night a wind sprung up and she saw her lights moving out of the sound … That was the last she saw.'

‘And what happened?'

‘The boat nor crew were never heard tell of … She always felt that he was alive and that he'd come back … She's got very old waiting … For a while she used to walk about the house at night, opening and shutting doors. But she got over that.'

‘It's a great pity Terence lost the little schooner on her. She shouldn't have lent it to him.'

‘Ah, Mr Devlin, she has a great liking for your son – great liking. And you'll have to send him back next summer. The loss of the wee schooner may do good, for it's gone now and she won't be cleaning it and thinking … There was times I wish somebody had stolen it.'

They were both silent. Three big waves hit the boat and sent the spray flying over them.

‘Man, Terence,' said Paddy, ‘if the wee schooner met fellas like that they'd make short work of her. But, maybe, she's ashore somewhere below the white rocks.'

‘And will you look for her?'

‘I will, I will,' said Paddy, trying to relight his damp pipe. But the abstracted way he answered made Terence feel that the schooner meant nothing to Paddy; he knew he would never see it again and that he'd have no schooner to play with when he'd come back next year.

The four children were in the sitting-room, warmly sheltered from the cold wind that was sweeping up in gusts from the lough. Now and again it flung handfuls of hailstones against the window-panes and bumped like a mattress against the gable of the house. Kevin, a boy of ten, was standing at one of the windows gazing out at the dry hailstones as they bounced on the lawn and combed through the chilled trees in the orchard. And with each shower that passed he saw the hailstones gather in the hoof-marks in the fields and lie white as snow on the road that switch-backed across the hedgy countryside.

For a while he scanned the road for he wanted to be first in seeing his father's car coming from the town and be the first out of the room as it drove into the stabled yard at the back of the house.

His father was to be home before five, and already five had chimed from the marble clock on the mantelpiece, and soon the blue of the sky would darken down for the coming of night and the lights in the farm-houses would shine out across the cold fields.

Of his three sisters Eileen, the eldest, was practising her pieces at the piano, playing softly, and paying no heed to anything else. Rita, with her black fringe broken in places like a comb, was stretched out on the hearthrug with a book propped between her elbows, and Kevin sensed that she was slyly watching him, determined that he wouldn't be first out of the room to greet the car. Joan, the youngest, was kneeling at the sofa with her dolls and scolding her teddybear for having fallen forward with out-stretched arms and head touching its legs. ‘If you don't sit up straight and have manners like the rest of the children you'll have to go to bed,' she said. ‘Do you hear? Now be a good teddy' – and straightening the brass bell on his ribboned neck she stood him soldierly against the sofa and propped dolls at each side to comfort him.

Rita, with one side of her face red and swollen by the fire, glanced at Joan, with unspoken cynicism, and closed her eyes.

‘You played with dolls yourself, Rita,' Kevin said, ‘so you needn't sneer.'

‘I'm not sneering. I'm reading, so mind your own business, Mister Smarty.'

Kevin shrugged his shoulders and turned to the window again. He tapped with his fingers on the window-ledge, beating time to the tune of the piano. Once more he gazed across the fields to the road but seeing its whiteness still unmarked by carlines he knew his father hadn't passed yet. The blue sky was empty of cloud, the fields white except for black patches under the hedges near the roadside. He breathed mist upon the window-pane and as he drew a little man on it with his finger something moving below on the road caught his eye. He put his hands in his pockets and humming to himself he withdrew from the window with a lazy, casual walk. But his manner didn't deceive Rita and she bounced to her feet and rushed to the door shouting: ‘Daddy's here!'

‘Come back at once!' Eileen ordered as Rita and Kevin struggled for possession of the door-knob. But Rita ignored her, shouldered Kevin aside and was first out to meet the car as it drove up with its roof white with hailstones.

Usually they all fought to get opening the car door but this evening they held back, fascinated by what was standing up in the trailer attached to the car. It was a black pony, not much bigger than a goat, and it was twitching its ears from the melting hailstones that tickled it. The two yard-dogs were barking furiously and jumping up at the side of the trailer, the children gathering at each side of it, patting the pony's head and picking off the straw and hailstones that were entangled in its mane.

‘She's mine, Daddy! She's for me!' Kevin was exclaiming as Joan scampered off to tell her mother to come quick.

‘She's not a lady,' the father said as he clouted the two dogs aside and unhitched the tail-board. And there, cradled in yellow straw, stood the whole pony with spills of steam hanging from each nostril. ‘He's so small he could hide in a potato bag,' the father said, piloting the pony on to the wet yard. The pony stood with patient unconcern, the children hugging his damp cold neck, and the dogs sniffing at the long tail blown sideways by the wind.

‘He's for me, isn't he Daddy?'

‘He's for all of you if you behave yourselves.'

‘He's one of the ponies we saw in Cinderella,' Joan said.

‘He's not one of Cinderella's ponies, stupid,' Rita corrected. ‘They were all white and he's all black.'

The mother hadn't come out yet to see the new arrival so the pony was led through the back door and down to the warm kitchen, the children skipping with delight on hearing his tiny hooves tinkle on the tiles.

‘Glory be to God what have you here!' the mother said, her hands white with flour. ‘Where on earth did you pick up that toy?'

‘No toy at all,' the father answered, and lifting the pony's long tail he used it to dust the window-sill. ‘He can be used for many things, and I believe he can do tricks to no end. He's so clever he can almost tell what you're thinking!'

‘I know what I'll be thinking if you don't take him out of my kitchen and let me get the tea ready in some sort of Christian decency,' and she patted the pony leaving a floury mark on his forelock.

‘He can sleep in my room in the corner, can't he Mammy?' Kevin was asking but before she had time to reply the father was leading the pony out to the yard again. And leaning into the back of the car he produced another surprise for them: a leather saddle complete with stirrups; and as he strapped it on the pony Kevin and Rita pushed one another and shouted: ‘Me first, Daddy. Oh, please, please!' Without a word the father lifted Joan on to its back, and as he led it by the bridle her mother waved out to her from the kitchen window.

Soon they all had rides on it except Eileen and when it came to her turn she refused to take it.

‘I'm too heavy,' she protested as Kevin and Rita tugged at her arms.

‘She's afraid! Eileen's afraid,' they chanted.

‘I'm not afraid.'

‘Then why don't you go for a ride?'

‘I don't want to.'

‘Come on, Eileen,' enticed the father, patting the saddle. ‘He's as quiet as a rabbit. He'll not throw you.'

‘I'd only hurt him,' she said, disengaging Kevin's hand as he dragged her forward.

To encourage her, her father threw his leg over the pony's back and lifted his feet to keep them from trailing the ground. ‘Come on, Eileen. Look how he can carry me.' But Eileen could not bear to look at him and she turned and fled into the house, and her father, realising he had distressed her, slid off its back and led the pony to the stable door.

‘Daddy,' Kevin pleaded, ‘get him to do some tricks before he goes to bed.'

‘Oh, do, do!' Rita said.

‘Some other day but not now. He's tired after his journey and we can't stay out here in the cold all evening.'

‘Just get him to do one.'

He didn't listen to them. He lit the hurricane lamp and led the pony out of the draughty yard and into the warm stable. Dolly, the mare, turned her head slowly and glanced sideways at the pony. Beside her great bulk he looked like a strange, undeveloped foal that could pass under her belly without touching her. He pressed against her front leg and pulled hay from the manger, their shadows staggering on the wall in the light from the lamp. The children eyed him in joyous stillness.

‘There's a cheek for you!' the father laughed. ‘He's only a visitor – only here on a holiday and he's ready to eat us out of house and home. You'd think he owned the place.'

‘Oh, is he not ours for ever, Daddy! Can we not keep him? Can we not buy him?'

‘Nothing could buy him. His circus would collapse without him. He has to go back before Easter.'

‘But why can't we buy him? Why, Daddy, why?' Kevin said, plucking his father's sleeve to attract his attention.

‘Hurry in out of the cold,' the father said and bolted the stable door.

It seemed suddenly darker outside, the lamplight flashing on the wet concrete, more stars in the sky and one trembling in the water-trough under the pump in the middle of the yard. An aeroplane zoomed overhead but none of the children looked up to pick out its red and green lights that winked from the wing-tips.

At the tea-table the father related how he had managed to get the pony on loan and how, without fail, he would have to be sent back at Easter to join his travelling circus. Shaking a finger at Kevin he warned him never to take the pony out onto the road. They could ride him of course up and down to the gate and around the sloping field as soon as the fresh grass began to rise.

He explained how he was to be combed and brushed, how foddered and bedded, and what polish to use on his saddle. He mentioned everything except what mattered most: how you got the pony to do his tricks.

‘Tomorrow you'll show us – won't you, Daddy?'

‘I'll see,' the father smiled. ‘He mightn't like to do tricks except for payment. If he broke his leg doing a trick, what'd we do?'

‘Tell them the truth and don't torment them any longer,' the mother said. She waited but he didn't answer her. ‘It's my firm belief you don't know at all,' she added.

‘The owner told me he's the cleverest pony in Ireland. He can do everything but talk.'

The mother shook her head and turned to Kevin: ‘Go to bed, son. If the pony can do tricks you'll be the one to make him. No one else could do it but you.'

‘That settles it,' the father said. ‘We'll leave all his capers and performances in Kevin's hands. Here and now we appoint him chief ringmaster.'

When Kevin was in bed Rita came into his room and got in beside him for a few minutes; and they lay and talked about the pony and arranged to call him Dandy. No other name would suit, and if Eileen wanted to change it they wouldn't allow her. He would be called Dandy – and that was that!

Next morning Kevin awoke early. A light covering of snow had fallen during the night and his room dazzled in the reflected whiteness. As he dressed he looked down at the yard to where drips from the eaves drew a dark line on the snow beneath. The pump with its neck maned with snow looked like a stiff little pony drinking at the water-trough; and there were even drips from its mouth tracing little circles on the water, little circles that looped together for a moment and then disappeared. That's how Dandy would drink, Kevin thought; and he wished at that instant to be taking him out just to see how his hooves would print a black letter ‘n' all over the surface of the snow.

The latch of the back-door clicked and his father crossed the yard with a bucket, and the two dogs came bounding from the hay-shed and over to the stable-door where they sniffed at the yellow straw that stuck out between the jambs. And in a few minutes the thin snow was patterned crazily with their paw-marks and Kevin knew that before he had his breakfast taken the whole snow would be completely melted from the yard.

He hurried out to school, running ahead of Rita and Joan. He was bursting to tell about the pony, and the boys gathered round him in the playground to hear about it. It was a prize circus pony, he told them, and it could do tricks to no end. What kind of tricks could it do? Oh, all kinds: it could catch the handle of the pump in its mouth and pump up the water. What else could it do? Kevin hesitated, drawing up from his memory tricks he had seen ponies do in Christmas circuses in Belfast. It could beg for bread, he told them, and it could give you its right hoof like a dog gives you its paw. It could walk round on its hind-legs and it could lie down and pretend to be dead. It could add up sums like 2 and 3, and 6 and 4, and tap out the answer with its foot. And if you put coloured handkerchiefs in a box and asked it to pick out a red one it would lift it out with its teeth and drop it at your feet.

He allowed three boys to come home with him after school, but when they reached the end of the drive below the house they heard his dogs barking and refused to go any further till he had locked them in.

He ran up the drive, barred the dogs in a shed, and whistled to his three friends who stood swinging on the road-side gate. They immediately threw their schoolbags behind the gatepost and raced up to him, and there in the safe silence of the yard they looked over the half-door of the stable at the black pony. It was, indeed, a wee beauty! And then he pointed to the saddle hanging from a peg in the wall. It took their breath away! – the hard shiny stirrups and the leather polished like a new chestnut. They would all get rides on it but not today. He wouldn't be allowed to take it out to the fields till the ground warmed. They would have to wait till then.

He let them into the stable, one at a time, to stroke the pony's head and to feel the steel stirrups and the saddle. In hushed voices they called out: ‘Dandy, Dandy!' and to Kevin's surprise the pony cocked its ears and the mare stamped a hind foot on the straw.

‘Get him to lie down and die, Kevin.'

‘No, no, get him to do a sum.'

‘Not now,' Kevin said. ‘He doesn't like performing in a stable, and into the bargain he'd only upset the mare.'

At that moment Kevin's mother rapped the window sharply and called him for his dinner.

His three friends scampered off, collected their schoolbags at the gate, and agreed among themselves that it was the dinkiest pony in the whole world.

In the succeeding days the sun lengthened his stride up the sky, the withered grass shrivelled from the rising green in the fields, and the mare and the pony were put out to graze, Kevin and his sisters hurried home from school to ride the pony before the sudden fall of evening and since Kevin hadn't yet discovered how the pony could be enticed to do a trick he allowed the two dogs to accompany him – an unexpressed warning to his school friends not to come into the field. From gaps in the hedge they would safely shout up to him: ‘Kevin, make him do a trick … Make him do a trick … Take in the dogs and give us rides apiece.' And as the pony jogged around, now with Kevin on his back, now with Rita, and now with Joan, bursts of enraged impatience would rush from the outcast spectators: ‘Make him gallop … Ah, he can't run … You'd get a better jaunt on a donkey.'