My Oedipus Complex (19 page)

‘Jim Ralegh,' said the Alderman, with his red-rimmed eyes growing moist, ‘I'd sooner put my hand in the fire than injure this band. I know what ye are, a band of brothers…Mick,' he boomed at my father, ‘will you desert it in its hour of trial?'

‘Ah,' said my father testily, ‘is it the way you want me to play against William O'Brien?'

‘Play against William O'Brien,' echoed the Alderman. ‘No one is asking you to play
against
anyone. As Jim Ralegh here says, music is above politics. What we're asking you to do is to play
for
something: for the band, for the sake of unity. You know what'll happen if the backers withdraw? Can't you pocket your pride and make this sacrifice in the interest of the band?'

My father stood for a few moments, hesitating. I prayed that for once he might see the true light; that he might show this group of misguided men the faith that was in him. Instead he nodded curtly, said ‘Very well, I'll play,' and sat down again. The rascally Alderman said a few humbugging words in his praise which didn't take me in. I don't think they even took
my father in, for all the way home he never addressed a word to me. I saw then that his conscience was at him. He knew that by supporting the band in the unprincipled step it was taking he was showing himself a traitor to Ireland and our great leader, William O'Brien.

Afterwards, whenever Irishtown played at Redmondite demonstrations, my father accompanied them, but the moment the speeches began he retreated to the edge of the crowd, rather like a pious Catholic compelled to attend a heretical religious service, and stood against the wall with his hands in his pockets, passing slighting and witty comments on the speakers to any O'Brienites he might meet. But he had lost all dignity in my eyes. Even his gibes at Scabby Doyle seemed to me false, and I longed to say to him. ‘If that's what you believe, why don't you show it?' Even the seaside lost its attraction when at any moment the beautiful daughter of a decent O'Brienite family might point to me and say: ‘There is the son of the cornet-player who betrayed Ireland.'

Then one Sunday we went to play at some idolatrous function in a seaside town called Bantry. While the meeting was on my father and the rest of the band retired to the pub and I with them. Even by my presence in the Square I wasn't prepared to countenance the proceedings. I was looking idly out of the window when I suddenly heard a roar of cheering and people began to scatter in all directions. I was mystified until someone outside started to shout, ‘Come on, boys! The O'Brienites are trying to break up the meeting.' The bandsmen rushed for the door. I would have done the same but my father looked hastily over his shoulder and warned me to stay where I was. He was talking to a young clarinet-player of serious appearance.

‘Now,' he went on, raising his voice to drown the uproar outside. ‘Teddy the Lamb was the finest clarinet-player in the whole British Army.'

There was a fresh storm of cheering, and wild with excitement I saw the patriots begin to drive a deep wedge of whirling sticks through the heart of the enemy, cutting them into two fighting camps.

‘Excuse me, Mick,' said the clarinet-player, going white, ‘I'll go and see what's up.'

‘Now, whatever is up,' my father said appealingly, ‘you can't do anything about it.'

‘I'm not going to have it said I stopped behind while my friends were fighting for their lives,' said the young fellow hotly.

‘There's no one fighting for their lives at all,' said my father irascibly, grabbing him by the arm. ‘You have something else to think about. Man alive, you're a musician, not a bloody infantryman.'

‘I'd sooner be that than a bloody turncoat, anyway,' said the young fellow, dragging himself off and making for the door.

‘Thanks, Phil,' my father called after him in a voice of a man who had to speak before he has collected his wits. ‘I well deserved that from you. I well deserved that from all of ye.' He took out his pipe and put it back into his pocket again. Then he joined me at the window and for a few moments he looked unseeingly at the milling crowd outside. ‘Come on,' he said shortly.

Though the couples were wrestling in the very gutters no one accosted us on our way up the street; otherwise I feel murder might have been committed. We went to the house of some cousins and had tea, and when we reached the railway station my father led me to a compartment near the engine; not the carriage reserved for the band. Though we had ten minutes to wait it wasn't until just before the whistle went that Tim Ryan, the bandmaster, spotted us through the window.

‘Mick!' he shouted in astonishment. ‘Where the hell were you? I had men out all over the town looking for you? Is it anything wrong?'

‘Nothing, Tim,' replied my father, leaning out of the window to him. ‘I wanted to be alone, that's all.'

‘But we'll see you at the other end?' bawled Tim as the train began to move.

‘I don't know will you,' replied my father grimly. ‘I think ye saw too much of me.'

When the band formed up outside the station we stood on the pavement and watched them. He had a tight hold of my hand. First Tim Ryan and then Jim Ralegh came rushing over to him. With an intensity of hatred I watched those enemies of Ireland again bait their traps for my father, but now I knew they would bait them in vain.

‘No, no Tim,' said my father, shaking his head, ‘I went too far before for the sake of the band, and I paid dear for it. None of my family was ever called a turncoat before today, Tim.'

‘Ah, it is a young fool like that?' bawled Jim Ralegh with tears in his wild eyes. ‘What need a man like you care about him?'

‘A man have his pride, Jim,' said my father gloomily.

‘He have,' cried Ralegh despairingly, ‘and a fat lot any of us has to be proud of. The band was all we ever had, and if that goes the whole thing goes. For the love of the Almighty God, Mick Twomey, come back with us to the bandroom anyway.'

‘No, no, no,' shouted my father angrily. ‘I tell you after today I'm finished with music.'

‘Music is finished with us you mean,' bawled Jim. ‘The curse of God on the day we ever heard of Redmond or O'Brien! We were happy men before it…All right, lads,' he cried, turning away with a wild and whirling motion of his arm. ‘Mick Twomey is done with us. Ye can go on without him.'

And again I heard the three solemn thumps on the big drum, and again the street was flooded with a roaring torrent of music, and though it no longer played for me, my heart rose to it and the tears came from my eyes. Still holding my hand, my father followed on the pavement. They were playing ‘Brian Boru's March', his old favourite. We followed them through the ill-lit town and as they turned down the side-street to the bridge, my father stood on the kerb and looked after them as though he wished to impress every detail on his memory. It was only when the music stopped and the silence returned to the narrow channel of the street that we resumed our lonely way homeward.

The woman stood at the foot of the lane, her right hand resting on the gate, her left fumbling at the neck of her blouse. Her face was lined, particularly about mouth and forehead; it was a face that rarely smiled, but was soft for all that, and plump and warm. She was quite grey. From a distance, this made her seem old; close at hand it had precisely the opposite effect, and tended to emphasize sharply what youthfulness still lingered in her, so that one thought of her as having suffered terribly at some time in the past.

The man came down the road, whistling a reel, the crisp, sprinkled notes of which were like the dripping of water in a cistern. She could hear his footsteps from a long way off, keeping irregular time to the elfin music, and drew aside a whitethorn bush by the gateway to watch him from cover. Apparently satisfied by her inspection, she kicked away the stone that held the gate in place, and, as he drew level with her, stepped out into the roadway. When he saw her he stopped, bringing down his ash plant with a twirl, but she did not look up.

‘Morrow, ma'am,' he cried jovially.

Then she did look up, and a helpless blush that completely and utterly belied the apparent calculation of her previous behaviour flowed over her features, giving them a sudden, startling freshness. ‘Good morrow and good luck,' she answered in a low voice.

‘Is it far to Ballysheery, ma'am?'

‘ 'Tis seven miles.'

‘Seven Irish, ma'am?'

‘Seven English.'

‘That's better.'

She drew her tongue across her lips to moisten them. The man was
young. He was decently dressed, but flaunted a rough, devil-may-care expression. He wore no hat, and his dark hair was all a tangle. You were struck by the length of his face, darkened by hot June suns; the high-boned nose jutting out rather too far, the irregular, discoloured teeth, the thick cracked lips, the blue eyes so far apart under his narrow, bony forehead that they seemed to sink back into the temples. A craggy face with high cheekbones, all hills and hollows, it was rendered extraordinarily mobile by the unexpected shadows that caught it here and there as the pale eyes drew it restlessly about. She judged him to be about twenty-six or -seven.

‘You seemed to be belting it out fine enough.'

‘How's that, ma'am?'

‘I heard you whistling.'

‘That's to encourage the feet, ma'am.… You'll pardon my asking, is there any place around a man would get a cup of tea, ma'am?'

‘There's no one would grudge you that, surely.'

Another would have detected the almost girlish timidity of the answer, but not he. He appeared both puzzled and disappointed.

‘I'll go a bit farther so,' he said stiffly.

‘What hurry is on you?'

‘ 'Tis my feet gets cramped.'

‘If you come with me you can rest them a while.'

‘God increase you, ma'am,' he replied.

They went up the boreen together. The house was on top of a hill, and behind it rose the mountainside, studded with rocks. There were trees about it, and in front a long garden with a hedge of fuchsia, at one side of which ran a stream. There were four or five apple trees, and beside the kitchen garden were a few flower beds with a profusion of tall snapdragon, yellow, red and white.

She put on the kettle and turned the wheel of the bellows. The kitchen filled with blue turf smoke, and the man sat beside the door, almost invisible behind a brilliant column of dustmotes, whirling spirally in the evening sunlight. But his hands lay on his knees in a pool of light, great brown hands with knuckles like polished stones. Fascinated, she watched them, and as she laid the table she almost touched them for sheer pleasure. His wild eyes, blue as the turf smoke, took in everything about the kitchen with its deal table, chairs and dresser, all scrubbed white; its delft arranged with a sort of pedantic neatness that suggests the old maid.

‘This is a fine, fancy place, ma'am,' he said.

‘ 'Tis a quiet place.'

‘ 'Tis so. The men are all away?'

‘There are no men.'

‘Oh!'

‘Only a boy that does turns for me.'

‘Oh!'

That was all he said before he turned to his meal. He was half-starved, she decided, as she watched him wolf the warm, crumbling bread. He saw her grey eyes fixed on him and laughed brightly.

‘I has a great stroke, ma'am.'

‘You have, God bless you. I might have boiled you another egg.'

When tea was over he sighed, stretching himself in his chair, and lit his pipe.

‘Would you mind if I took off my boots, ma'am?' he asked shyly.

‘Why would I? Take them off and welcome.'

‘My feet is crucified.'

She bent and took up the boot he removed.

‘No wonder. Your boots are in need of mending.'

He laughed at her expressive politeness.

‘Mending, ma'am? Did you say mending? They're long past praying for.'

‘They are, that's true. I wonder.… There's an old pair inside these years and years. They'd be better than the ones you have if they'd fit you.'

She brought them in, good substantial boots but stiff, and a trifle large for him. Not that he was in a state to mind.

‘God, but they're grand, ma'am, they're grand! One little patch now, and they'd be as good as new. Better than new, for they're a better boot than I could ever buy in a shop. Wait now! Wait!' With boyish excitement he foraged in his pockets, and from the lining of his coat produced a piece of leather. He held it up with the air of a professional conjurer. ‘Watch me now. Are you watching?' The leather fitted over the slight hole and he gave a whoop of joy. She found him last and hammer; he provided tacks from a paper bag in a vest pocket, and set to mending the damage with something like a tradesman's neatness.

‘Is that your trade?' she asked curiously.

‘One of my trades, ma'am. Cobbler, carpenter, plumber, gardener,
thatcher, painter, poet; everything under the sun and moon, and nothing for long. But a cobbler is what I do be most times.'

He walked the kitchen in his new boots with all a child's inconsequent pleasure. There was something childlike about him, she decided, and she liked it. He peered at the battered alarm clock on the smoky heights of the mantelpiece and sighed.

‘I'd like to stop here always,' he said wistfully, ‘but I suppose I'd better be going.'

‘What hurry is on you?'

‘Seven miles, ma'am. Two hours. Maybe more. And I have to be in the old doss early if I want to get a place to sleep.'

But he sat down once more and put a match to his pipe.

‘Not, mind you, ma'am, that there's many could put me out of a warm corner if I'd a mind to stay in it. No indeed, but unless I had a drop in me I'd never fight for a place. Never. I'm apt to be cross when I'm drunk, but I never hit a man sober yet only once. That was a foxy tinker out of the Ranties, and the Ranties are notorious cross men, ma'am. You see, there was a little blind man, ma'am, trying to sleep, and this Ranty I'm talking about, whenever he saw the blind man dozing, he'd give his beard a tug. So I got that mad I rose up, and without saying as much as “by your leave”, I hit him such a terrible blow under the chin the blood hopped out on me in the dark. Yes, ma'am, hopped clean out on me. That was a frightful hard blow.' He looked at her for approval and awe, and saw her, womanlike, draw up her shoulders and shiver. His dramatic sense was satisfied.