My Oedipus Complex (48 page)

‘That's a bloody fine adventure,' said Foley with bitter restraint.

‘Isn't it thought?' Delancey said eagerly. ‘You'd be a long time in Farranchreesht before anything like that would happen you.'

‘That's the thing about Farranchreesht, lad,' said Magner. ‘ 'Tis a great ease to be able to put on your cap and go for a drink any hour of the day or night.'

‘Yes,' added Foley, ‘and to know the worst case you're likely to have in ten years is a bit of a scrap about politics.'

‘I don't know,' Delancey sighed dreamily. ‘Chrisht, there's great charm about the Criminal Courts.'

‘Damn the much they had for you when you were in the box,' growled Foley.

‘I know, sure, I know,' admitted Delancey crestfallen. ‘I was sweating.'

‘Shutting your eyes you were,' said Magner, ‘like a kid afraid he was going to get a box on the ear.'

‘Still,' said Delancey, ‘this sergeant I'm talking about, he said after a while you wouldn't mind that no more than if 'twas a card party. He said you'd talk back to the judge as man to man.'

‘I dare say that's true,' agreed Magner.

There was silence in the smoky compartment that jolted and rocked on its way across Ireland, and the four occupants, each touched with that morning wit which afflicts no one so much as state witnesses, thought of how they'd speak to the judge now if only they had him before them as man to man. They looked up to see a fat red face behind the door, and a moment later it was dragged back.

‘Is this my carriage, gentlemen?' asked a meek and boozy voice.

‘No, 'tisn't. Go on with you!' snapped Magner.

‘I had as nice a carriage as ever was put on a railway train,' said the drunk, leaning in, ‘a handsome carriage, and 'tis lost.'

‘Try farther on,' suggested Delancey.

‘Ye'll excuse me interrupting yeer conversation, gentlemen.'

‘That's all right, that's all right.'

‘I'm very melancholic. My best friend, I parted him this very night, and 'tis unknown to anyone, only the Almighty and Merciful God [here the drunk reverently raised his bowler hat and let it slide down the back of his neck to the floor] if I'll ever lay eyes on him again in this world. Good-night, gentlemen, and thanks, thanks for all yeer kindness.'

As the drunk slithered away up the corridor Delancey laughed. Fox, who had remained thoughtful, resumed the conversation where it had left off.

‘Delancey wasn't the only one that was sweating,' he said.

‘He was not,' agreed Foley. ‘Even the sergeant was a bit shook.'

‘He was very shook. When he caught up the poison mug to identify it he was shaking, and before he could put it down it danced a jig on the table.'

‘Ah, dear God, dear God,' sighed Delancey, ‘what killed me most entirely was the bloody old model of the house. I didn't mind anything else only the house. There it was, a living likeness, with the bit of grass in front and the shutter hanging loose, and every time I looked at it I was in the back lane in Farranchreesht, and then I'd look up and see the lean fellow in the wig pointing his finger at me.'

‘Well, thank God,' said Foley with simple devotion, ‘this time tomorrow I'll be in Ned Ivers's back with a pint in my fist.'

Delancey shook his head, a dreamy smile playing upon his dark face.

‘I don't know,' he said. ‘ 'Tis a small place, Farranchreesht; a small,
mangy old place with no interest or advancement in it.' His face lit up as the sergeant appeared in the corridor.

‘Here's the sergeant now,' he said.

‘He wasn't long getting tired of Julietta,' whispered Magner maliciously.

The door was pushed back and the sergeant entered, loosening the collar of his tunic. He fell into a corner seat, crossed his legs, and accepted the cigarette which Delancey proffered.

‘Well, lads,' he exclaimed. ‘What about a jorum?'

‘Isn't it remarkable?' said Foley. ‘I was only just talking about it.'

‘I have noted before now, Peter,' said the sergeant, ‘that you and me have what might be called a simultaneous thirst.'

The country folk were silent and exhausted. Kendillon drowsed now and then, but he suffered from blood-pressure, and after a while his breathing grew thicker and stronger till at last it exploded in a snort and he started up, broad awake and angry. In the silence rain spluttered and tapped along the roof and the dark window-panes streamed with shining runnels of water that trickled to the floor. Moll Mhor scowled, her lower lip thrust out. She was a great flop of a woman with a big, coarse, powerful face. The other two women whose eyes were closed had their brown shawls drawn tight about their heads, but Moll's was round her shoulders and the gap above her breasts was filled with a blaze of scarlet.

‘Aren't we home yet?' Kendillon asked crossly, starting awake after one of his drowsing fits.

Moll glowered at him.

‘No, nor won't be. What scour is on you?'

‘My little house,' moaned Kendillon.

‘My little house,' mimicked Moll. ‘ 'Twasn't enough for you to board the windows and put barbed wire on the gate.'

‘ 'Tis all very well for you that have someone to mind yours for you,' he snarled.

One of the women laughed softly and turned a haggard virginal face within the cowl of her shawl.

‘ 'Tis that have me laughing,' she explained apologetically. ‘Tim Dwyer this week past at the stirabout pot.'

‘And making the beds,' chimed in the third woman.

‘And washing the children's faces! Glory be to God, he'll be mad.'

‘Ay,' said Moll, ‘and his chickens running off with Thade Kendillon's roof.'

‘My roof is it?' he asked.

‘Yes.'

‘ 'Tis a good roof,' he said roughly. ‘ 'Tis a better roof than ever was seen over your head since the day you married.'

‘Oh, Mary my mother!' sighed Moll, ‘ 'tis a great pity of me this three hours and I looking at the likes of you instead of my own fine bouncing man.'

‘ 'Tis a new thing to hear you praising Sean then,' said a woman.

‘I wronged him,' Moll said contritely. ‘I did so. I wronged him before God and the world.'

At this moment the drunken man pulled back the door of the compartment and looked from face to face with an expression of deepening melancholy.

‘She's not here,' he said in disappointment.

‘Who's not here, mister?' asked Moll with a wink at the others.

‘I'm looking for my own carriage, ma'am,' said the drunk with melancholy dignity, ‘and whatever the bloody hell they done with it, 'tis lost. The railways in this country are gone to hell.'

‘Wisha, if that's all that's worrying you, wouldn't you sit here with me?' asked Moll. ‘I'm here so long I'm forgetting what a real man looks like.'

‘I would with great pleasure,' replied the drunk politely, ‘but 'tisn't only the carriage. 'Tis my travelling-companion. I'm a lonely man; I parted my best friend this very night; I found one to console me, and then when I turned my back – God took her!'

And with a dramatic gesture he closed the door and continued on his way. The country folk sat up, blinking. The smoke of the men's pipes filled the compartment and the heavy air was laden with the smell of homespun and turf-smoke, the sweet pungent odour of which had penetrated every fibre of their clothes.

‘Listen to the rain!' said one of the women. ‘We'll have a wet walk home.'

‘ 'Twill be midnight before we're in,' said another.

‘Ah, what matter sure when the whole country will be up? There'll be a lot of talking done in Farranchreesht tonight.'

‘A lot of talking and no sleep.'

‘Oh, Farranchreesht! Farranchreesht!' cried the young woman with the haggard face, the ravaged lineaments of which were suddenly transfigured. ‘Farranchreesht and the sky over you, I wouldn't change places with the Queen of England tonight!'

And suddenly Farranchreesht, the bare bogland with the hump-backed mountain behind, the little white houses and the dark fortifications of turf that made it seem like the flame-blackened ruin of some mighty city, all was lit up in their minds. An old man sitting in a corner, smoking a broken clay pipe, thumped his stick on the floor.

‘Well now,' said Kendillon darkly, ‘wasn't it great impudence in her to come back?'

‘Wasn't it indeed?' echoed one of the women.

‘I'd say she won't be there long,' he went on knowingly.

‘You'll give her the hunt, I suppose?' asked Moll politely, too politely.

‘If no one else do, I'll give her the hunt myself. What right have she in a decent place?'

‘Oh, the hunt, the hunt,' agreed a woman. ‘Sure, no one could ever darken her door again.'

‘And what the hell did we tell all the lies for?' asked Moll with her teeth on edge to be at Kendillon. ‘Thade Kendillon there swore black was white.'

‘What else would I do, woman? There was never an informer in my family.'

‘I'm surprised to hear it,' said Moll vindictively, but the old man thumped his stick three or four times for silence.

‘We all told our story,' he said, ‘and we told it well. And no one told it better than Moll. You'd think to hear her she believed it herself.'

‘I declare to God I very nearly did,' she said with a wild laugh.

‘I seen great changes in my time, great changes,' the old man said, shaking his head, ‘and now I see a greater change still.'

A silence followed his words. There was profound respect in all their eyes. The old man coughed and spat.

‘What change is that, Colm?' asked Moll.

‘Did any of ye ever think the day would come when a woman in our parish would do the like of that?'

‘Never, never.'

‘But she might do it for land?'

‘She might.'

‘Or for money?'

‘She might so.'

‘She might indeed. When the hunger is money people kill for the money; when the hunger is land people kill for the land. But what are they killing for now? I tell ye, there's a great change coming. In the ease of the world people are asking more. When I was a boy in the barony if you killed a beast you made six pieces of it, one for yourself and the rest for the neighbours. The same if you made a catch of fish. And that's how it was with us from the beginning of time. But now look at the change! The people aren't as poor or as good or as generous or as strong.'

‘Or as wild,' added Moll with a vicious glance at Kendillon. ‘ 'Tis in the men you'd mostly notice the change.'

The door opened and Magner, Delancey, and the sergeant entered. Magner was already drunk.

‘I was lonely without you, Moll,' he said. ‘You're the biggest and brazenest and cleverest liar of the lot and you lost me my sergeant's stripes, but I'll forgive you everything if you'll give us one bar of the “Colleen Dhas Roo”.'

‘I'm a lonely man,' said the drunk. ‘And I'm going back to a lonely habitation.'

‘My best friend,' he continued, ‘I left behind me – Michael O'Leary, the most sincere man I know. 'Tis a great pity you don't know Michael and a great pity Michael don't know you. But look at the misfortunate way things happen! I was looking for someone to console me, and the moment I turned my back you were gone.'

He placed his hand solemnly under the woman's chin and raised her face to the light. With the other hand he stroked her cheeks.

‘You have a beautiful face,' he said reverently, ‘a beautiful face. But
what's more important, you have a beautiful soul. I look into your eyes and I see the beauty of your nature. Allow me one favour. Only one favour before we part.'

He bent and kissed her. Then he picked up his bowler which had fallen once more, put it on back to front, took his dispatch case, and got out.

The woman sat on alone. Her shawl was thrown open and beneath it she wore a bright-blue blouse. The carriage was cold, the night outside black and cheerless, and within her something had begun to contract that threatened to crush the very spark of life in her. She could no longer fight it off even when for the hundredth time she went over the scenes of the previous day; the endless hours in the dock, the wearisome questions and speeches she could not understand, and the long wait in the cells till the jury returned. She felt again the shiver of mortal anguish that went through her when the chief warder beckoned angrily from the stairs and the wardress, glancing hastily in a hand-mirror, pushed her forward. She saw the jury with their expressionless faces. She was standing there alone, in nervous twitches jerking back the shawl from her face to give herself air. She was trying to say a prayer but the words were being drowned in her mind by the thunder of nerves, crashing and bursting. She could feel one which had escaped dancing madly at the side of her mouth, but was powerless to recapture it.

‘The verdict of the jury is that Helena Maguire is not guilty.' Which was it? Death or life? She could not say. ‘Silence! Silence!' shouted the usher though no one had tried to say anything. ‘Any other charge?' asked a weary voice. ‘Release the prisoner.' ‘Silence!' shouted the usher again. The chief warder opened the door of the dock and she began to run. When she reached the steps she stopped and looked back to see if she was being followed. A policeman held open a door and she found herself in an ill-lit, draughty stone corridor. She stood there, the old shawl about her face. The crowd began to emerge. The first was a tall girl with a rapt expression as though she were walking on air. When she saw the woman she halted, her hands went up in an instinctive gesture, as though to feel her, to caress her. It was that look of hers, that gait as of a sleepwalker that brought the woman to her senses.…